The Challenge of Minority Integration: Politics and Policies in the Nordic Nations 9783110441116, 9783110441109

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Peter A. Kraus, Peter Kivisto The Challenge of Minority Integration Politics and Policies in the Nordic Nations

Peter A. Kraus, Peter Kivisto

The Challenge of Minority Integration Politics and Policies in the Nordic Nations

Managing Editor: Andrea S. Dauber-Griffin

Published by De Gruyter Open Ltd, Warsaw/Berlin Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston The book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license, which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.

Copyright © 2015 Peter A. Kraus, Peter Kivisto ISBN: 978-3-11-044110-9 e-ISBN: 978-3-11-044111-6 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. Managing Editor: Andrea S. Dauber-Griffin www.degruyteropen.com

Contents Acknowledgements

IX

Part I: Framing Integration and Solidarity in Contemporary Liberal Democracies Thomas Hylland Eriksen 2 1 The Meaning of ‘We’ 1.1 What is a society? 2 1.2 The need for complex methods 6 1.3 The dual revolution of the 21st century 10 1.4 Tensions in the 21st century world 13 1.5 Dominant relations of inclusion and exclusion 1.6 What is integration? 16 References 20

15

Peter Kivisto 22 2 The Politics of Integration 2.1 Framing the analysis: Multiculturalism as claims-making 2.2 Diversity and integration in the Nordic social democracies References 34

23 28

PART II: Case Studies from the Nordic Nations Peter A. Kraus 3 Democracy’s Challenge: Nordic Minority Politics in the European Context 3.1 Democracy, the people and the paradox of sovereignty 38 3.2 The challenge of minorities 43 3.3 Minority politics in the Nordic context 46 References 50 Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark 4

Divergence and Convergence in Minority Law and Policies in the Nordic 52 Countries

38

4.1 Introduction 52 4.2 The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and its ratification by the Nordic countries 54 4.3 The concept of ‘minority’ in the four countries examined 58 4.4 Concluding reflections 68 Birte Siim 5 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6

Migration, Multiculturalism and Gender – a Nordic Perspective 71 Rethinking citizenship and diversity 73 Multicultural citizenship and gender equality 75 The multicultural challenge to the Nordic welfare states 77 The Nordic gender equality paradox 80 Framings and regulations regarding headscarves in Nordic nations 82 Conclusion: Multiculturalism and gender equality - issues and strategies 86 References 88 Camilla Nordberg 6

Dynamics of Recognition: Minority Ethnic Access to Transformative Power 91 in the Nordic Welfare State 6.1 Introduction 91 6.2 Recognition of social injustice 92 6.3 Institutional and cultural constraints to agency 93 6.4 The local context of agency: The ‘universalist’ welfare state and its ethno-cultural others 95 6.5 Dynamics of Roma activist participatory encounters in Finnish society 96 6.5.1 The rationales of political agency 97 6.5.2 The limits of the public sphere in Finland 100 6.6 State policy and Roma and Traveller mobilisation in Sweden and Norway 101 6.6.1 Social policy, education and subordinated agency in Sweden 102 6.6.2 Control, discipline and emerging resistance in Norway 103 6.6.3 Diverging trajectories? 104 6.7 Conclusion 105 References 107 Reetta Toivanen 7

From Ignorance to Effective Inclusion: The Role of National Minorities 110 within the Finnish Consensus Culture 7.1 Prologue 110

7.2 Equality mainstreaming or societal strait-jacket? 111 7.3 Minorities in Finland 113 7.4 Finnish commitment to equality and the practice of ignorance 115 7.5 The Sami and the Roma in Finland: Two unlike minority populations 118 7.5.1 Difference rights for Sámi vs. sameness rights for Roma? 119 7.5.2 Defining minority identity in a majority context 120 7.5.3 The public sphere as a hegemonic setting co-defines minoritisation 121 7.6 Sámi and the denial of the right to their own culture 122 7.6.1 International law and ways to sidestep its requirements 123 7.6.2 National laws and ways to sidestep their provisions 126 7.7 Roma – a persistent underclass 129 7.7.1 Blood feuding 131 7.7.2 The Roma language – revitalisation efforts of a secret code 133 7.8 Power as a theory and a practice 134 References 138 Niko Pyrhönen, Karin Creutz and Marjukka Weide 8

Orchestrating National Unity: An Assessment of Discourses in Immigrant Legislation and the Surrounding Parliamentary and Public Debates 141 8.1 Introduction 141 8.2 Framing the boundary-work of national unity – a model of discursive practices with reference to the preparatory process of the Aliens Act of 2004 144 8.3 Parliamentarians’ constructions of national unity through the state 152 8.3.1 National solidarity 154 8.3.2 Costs and gains 155 8.3.3 The strong embrace of the state 157 8.3.4 The sound political process 159 8.4 A macro-societal approach to immigration topics – media discourses and internet debates 160 8.4.1 The meta-discourse: Finnishness through boundaries 161 8.4.2 Management of the pros and cons of immigration – the instrumentalist frame 162 8.4.3 Immigration as societal threat – negotiating solidarity 163 8.4.4 Prioritising ‘us’ – the precedence of the majority 164 8.4.5 Integration through legislative policies – immigration from a governmentalist perspective 165 8.4.6 The media and internet discussions as a reification of the institutionalised policy-oriented discourses 166 8.5 Concluding discussion 166 References 169 Appendix 1: Original Quotes 172

Niklas Wilhelmsson 9

Social Capital as a Resource for Political Participation: Finland in a Nordic Comparative Perspective 176 9.1 Introduction and research questions 176 9.2 Political participation 180 9.2.1 The importance of political participation and equality 181 9.2.2 Political rights of migrants in the Nordic countries 181 9.3 The explanatory variable: social capital 183 9.3.1 Bridging and bonding social capital 183 9.3.2 Hypotheses 185 9.4 Control variables 185 9.5 Political participation among migrants in Finland 186 9.5.1 Organisational participation among immigrants in Finland 187 9.5.2 An analysis of the link between organisational participation and electoral participation among migrants in Finland 189 9.6 Civic rights, electoral participation and organisational activity among migrants in a Nordic comparative perspective 192 9.7 Discussion 196 9.8 Conclusions 197 References 198 Index

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Acknowledgements The chapters in this collection are the final results of a conference that was held in Helsinki in October of 2009, hosted by Peter Kraus. The participants were part of a research project titled “Challenging Power,” which represented one of twenty-one discrete programs funded by the Academy of Finland in the Valta (Power) Program, the first effort in several decades to explore the topic of power in Finland from a number of methodological and disciplinary perspectives, and with a view of power that was more encompassing than traditional studies of the parliamentary and electoral system. This particular project sought to look in depth at issues related to power and the inclusion of minority groups in Finland, which included both old minority groups such as the Sámi and the Roma and new immigrant groups. We would like to recognise a number of individuals for their contributions to the success of the project, in addition to the authors included herein. We appreciate the support of the staff at the Academy of Finland, in particular Petteri Pietikäinen for going beyond the call of duty in assisting us. We would also like to thank the following individuals at the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism at the University of Helsinki: Daniel Moran, Tom Sandlund, Pasi Saukkonen, Matti Similä, and Östen Wahlbeck.

PART I: Framing Integration and Solidarity in Contemporary Liberal Democracies

Thomas Hylland Eriksen

1 The Meaning of ‘We’ Some words typically used to characterise our present age – Western or non-Western – are flux, mobility, identity politics and multiculturalism, hybridity and the ongoing contestation of social and cultural boundaries. Issues taken on in the present volume include minority rights, citizenship, the dilemmas of multiculturalism in liberal societies, the often fraught relationship between state and civil society, and questions to do with the identity of the demos of a democracy. From this cluster of contentious and intellectually challenging questions I take my cue, and will use this opportunity to reflect on possible meanings of the word ‘we’ in the contemporary world. The word ‘we’ is situational in that it can refer to a variety of collectivities depending on the context. It implies both inclusion and exclusion: by logical extension, the word ‘we’ implies ‘they’. Of particular interest is the question why certain ways of delineating a collective identity become empirically predominant while others are forgotten. This is not an issue of mere academic interest in a world which witnesses the upsurge of ethnic, religious and national identities – sometimes from below, in opposition to the state, sometimes from above, in defence of the state – while other forms of identification (based on, say, place or class) tend to be less visible. Regarding the contemporary state, the issue at hand concerns who is to be included in the state, and what it entails to be included. In the following, I shall approach the question of ‘we’ from three perspectives. First, I simply ask what a society is. Secondly, I consider some kinds of dominant relationships that may lead to exclusion within a given society. Thirdly and finally, I distinguish between different forms of integration. As a result, it may be possible to explore questions of societal boundaries and collective identities slightly more accurately in the future.

1.1 What is a society? ‘What is a society?’ asks the anthropologist Maurice Godelier (2009:137) in a book that discusses Melanesian village societies and modern state societies in a comparative spirit. The question has been raised many times before. It is, in fact, much older than social science. In our era, this simple, but complex question has developed new meanings, and perhaps a more acute character than usual in human society. Rapid processes of change and enhanced mobility have made the boundaries of societies and their content less obviously clear than before. When the classic sociologists, from Tönnies and Durkheim to Simmel and Weber, discussed the nature of society, they wrote against a backdrop of dramatic social transformations, that is the shift from agrarian to industrial society. In the decades © 2015 Thomas Hylland Eriksen This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.



What is a society? 

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around the last turn of the century, frantic industrialisation and urbanisation took place around Europe and North America, closely interconnected with the consolidation of colonial empires in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Formerly autonomous tribal societies were incorporated into colonial empires, at the same times as millions of Europeans moved from rural areas to towns. During the 19th century, the industrial capitalist took over from the feudal landowner as the engine of economic processes. International migration was widespread then as now, but the main currents went from countries in the north to European settler colonies such as Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. Actually, a significantly higher proportion of the world’s population lived outside their country of birth in 1911 than in 2011 (Castles and Miller 2003), although absolute numbers were lower. In 1911, the total population of the planet was 1.7 billion; it has been quadrupled in a hundred years, in other words. Like most social scientists in our century, Godelier writes against a backdrop of globalisation processes, but his vantage point is not the Northern metropoles. Instead, he takes his point of departure in his own long-term research among the Baruya, a people in the New Guinea highlands who number roughly two thousand individuals. Before the Australian-British colonisation of Papua New Guinea reached the lands of the Baruya in 1960, they doubtless constituted a society, according to Godelier. They were an autonomous group, which stood in contact with other autonomous peoples (with whom they traded salt and other goods), but who were themselves in charge of their social, cultural and ritual institutions. Following the Australian and later Papuan incorporation of Baruya territory into a state formation, it is increasingly debatable whether the concept ‘society’ is appropriate for them. For a society is not merely an aggregate of persons with certain formal traits in common (e.g. language or religion), or simply a state or otherwise delineated territory. More is required for the term society to fit. Godelier formulates his question like this: What are the connections – political, religious, economic, kinship, or other – that have the capacity to bring together groups and individuals who thereby form a ‘society’ (with borders that are known if not recognized by the neighbouring societies) and so fuse them into an all-encompassing whole that endows them with an additional, overarching, shared identity? (Godelier, 2009:142)

The Baruya have been integrated into a social system at a high level of scale (the nation-state Papua New Guinea) and partly into an economic system at an even higher level of scale (global capitalism). They have lost their sovereignty over ‘their mountains and rivers, and over their own selves’ (Godelier, 2009:142), and have been subjected to the power of a state - an institution totally alien to them. From being an independent society, they have been re-defined as a ‘local tribal group’ that forms part of a larger regional ethnic group (the Anga) in PNG. The system boundaries have become unclear. The state has redefined the Baruya language into a dialect. The word ‘we’ has become ambiguous and contested. This kind of historical process has been common in many parts of the world, and some of the results can be observed first

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 The Meaning of ‘We’

hand in Native American reserves (where violence and alcoholism are endemic) or in Australian cities (where most homeless are Aborigines). The changes in question are not primarily cultural; they do not chiefly pertain to changes in language, clothing or food habits. Anthropologists tell of communities in the Amazon that, on first contact with Europeans, happily don Manchester United T-shirts and dance to Western music without considering any of this as a threat to their culture. However, changes in their social relations and kin patterns, as a result of wage work or enforced migration, or subjugation by the law and other institutions of the state, would be perceived as a grave threat. The history of modernity is the story of the transition from the concrete to the abstract, from small to large scale. Autonomous communities have been incorporated with or (usually) without their consent into mighty states and empires. Many have been erased from history, while others continue to exist, now as local communities or ethnic minorities within a state. Godelier is aware that he cannot write about the Baruya today independently of globalisation processes – or, rather, the tension between the global and the local, the big and the small, the abstract and the concrete. No society, small or large, governs its own destiny fully and is defined by sharp, uncontested boundaries. Even the most isolated, most closely-knit community has porous boundaries, but in our time, the currents connecting societies and relativising their boundaries are stronger and more comprehensive than ever before. Autonomy becomes a question of degree, just as internal cohesion or integration. In his analyses of the Baruya, Godelier emphasises the ‘politico-religious’ as the foundation of society. Put differently: Political power and economic integration are essential, but a system of symbolic meaning is also necessary in order to provide the members of a society with an ‘overarching shared identity’. In most of the societies we know from anthropology and history, religion and rituals constitute the most important symbolic foundation for integration. The separation of religion from politics was established late if at all; in Europe, the Treaty of Westphalia from 1648 is often mentioned, but a few countries, such as Norway, still have a state church, and it was only in 1945 that Emperor Hirohito was forced to concede that he was not of divine stock, following the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The question is, accordingly, which shared basis of identity, which can also legitimise political power, is possible in a country with no shared religion. In much of the 20th century, nationalism largely took the place of religion as a secular alternative to it, but it has increasingly been shown to separate as much as it unites; not only because the growing numbers of minorities feel uncomfortable with the nationalism of the majorities, but also because many members of the majorities orient themselves in other directions than inwards and backwards. Whereas Godelier writes from one of the outposts of globalisation – the mountain valleys of New Guinea – the chapters in this book deal with a less marginal area. Although Finland and the other Nordic countries may be geographically peripheral and climatically hostile, they are in other respects typical rich countries in the era of globalisation, seamlessly integrated into global economic processes, which



What is a society? 

 5

entails wide-ranging exchange relations comprising, among other things, persons, commodities, services, symbols, commitments and insults with respect to the rest of the world, inside and outside of the European Union. The question concerning the boundaries of society and its substance are being raised here, as among the Baruya, but against a very different version of global modernity, characterised by migration, porous boundaries and global networks of information and communication. Whereas the early social theorists saw industrialisation, bureaucratisation and colonialism as the most powerful agents of change in their time, the focus now has to be shifted to other forces, such as transnational processes, instantaneous global communication, complex and contested identities, demographic change and value pluralism. In order to make sense of this new world, a varied analytical toolbox is necessary, utilising both old concepts (tailored to fit the situation around the last turn of the century) and new ones made to measure to suit the present era; some of the classic sociological concepts are still useful, whereas others have become ‘zombie concepts’ (Beck 2009): undead words. They are still in circulation, but no longer have anything to say. Looking at the debates about citizenship, national identities, ethnic diversity and transnationalism, one may well ask if ‘society’ may be such a concept. In his popular textbook in cultural anthropology from 1981, Roger M. Keesing defined (a) society like this: Society: A population marked by relative separation from surrounding populations and a distinctive culture (complex societies may include two or more distinctive cultural groups incorporated within a single social system) (Keesing 1981:518).

Note the caveat ‘relative separation’. Anthony Giddens, in his no less widely read textbook in sociology from 1993, defined the concept of society as follows: SOCIETY: A society is a group of people who live in a particular territory, are subject to a common system of political authority, and are aware of having a distinct identity from other groups around them. Some societies, like those of hunters and gatherers, are very small, numbering no more than a few dozen people. Others are very large, involving many millions…(Giddens 1993:746).

Like Keesing, Giddens emphasises physical separation from the surroundings. Keesing’s formulation ‘two or more distinctive cultural groups’ is theoretically dated, however, since complex societies contain many borderline cases, frontier areas and overlapping or hybrid cultural worlds. Giddens’ phrase ‘a distinct identity’ is conceptually better, but needs to be checked against diverse empirical realities. Indeed, much current research on complex societies and their internal dynamics of inclusion and exclusion indirectly responds to general phrases of this kind, although the theoretical implications are too rarely spelled out. Many have proposed new terminologies tailored to help conceptualise the current era, partly replacing the ‘zombie concepts’ of old in the process. Among the most

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 The Meaning of ‘We’

radical bids is John Urry’s proposal to replace the term ‘society’ with ‘mobility’ (Urry 2000). What if, he reasons, we study social life through a lens of mobility rather than stability? The result would doubtlessly be quite different from a conceptualisation (still common in social science) assuming, almost in an axiomatic way, that stable societies are the stuff that social life is made of. At the same time, however, much would be lost if the concept of society was relegated to the dustbin of history, since it is an empirical fact that people all over the world seek stability, continuity, security and predictability (Eriksen, Bal and Salemink 2010), often by defending or creating spatial belonging, border demarcations and collective memories anchored in particular places (Connerton 2009). What has been ‘dis-embedded’ is, in a multitude of ways, being ‘re-embedded’. Less revolutionary, but still fairly radical attempts to renew the conceptual apparatus of the social sciences, can be found in works by, inter alia, Castells (1996– 8), Giddens (1991), Beck (2009), Bourdieu (1977) and Bauman (2000), who have suggested terms such as the global network society (Castells), globalised risk society (Beck), multidimensional social spaces (Bourdieu) and the era of reflexive modernity (Giddens), in a series of attempts to conceptualise the social in a time characterised by accelerated change and fuzzy boundaries. The chapters comprising this book are less revolutionary at the conceptual level, but empirically they are more convincing than the jet set of high-flying theorists tends to be. If anything, this book shows why it remains pertinent to ask analytically and empirically informed questions about the nature of society – its boundaries, its substantial content, its modes of legitimation, its symbolic foundation. Seen as a whole, the contributions indicate the need for a complex methodology. As Gregory Bateson (1979) puts it, two descriptions are better than one. In this context, the diversity of contemporary European states must be studied from a variety of viewpoints in order to be properly understood.

1.2 The need for complex methods An example illustrating the need for a complex methodology could be the phenomenon of female circumcision among migrants and the controversies surrounding it. Circumcision of girls is widespread in North-Eastern Africa and also exists in some other regions of the world. This kind of practice, painful and potentially physiologically damaging, customarily takes place in girlhood, before puberty. A common Western interpretation of the practice would be that female circumcision (often described as genital mutilation) is an expression of male control over female sexuality, depriving women of the possibility to experience sexual pleasure. However, it remains that women often are responsible for carrying out the surgery, and that many circumcised women hold that they would be less ‘complete’ and pure if they were not circumcised (Talle 2007).



The need for complex methods 

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At least four different perspectives, or gazes, on female circumcision are needed for a full understanding of it, both as practice and as ideology: (a) From within, in a context where virtually everybody is circumcised, the incision is seen as a natural and necessary part of the transition to womanhood. (b) From within, in a European context, uncertainty and disagreement about the practice emerge, since one is surrounded by women who have not been circumcised but appear to cope reasonably well with life, notwithstanding. (c) From outside, in the same European context, the practice is considered barbaric (this is the context in which the term ‘genital mutilation’ is being used), and the authorities ban it. (d) In the frontier area between (b) and (c), a fourth perspective develops, where negotiations – often involving NGOs and health personnel –  take place aiming to get rid of the practice without violating the self-esteem and agency of those affected by the change. In politics, the typical, methodologically nationalist interpretation of circumcision is that it represents something ‘we’ did not have before, but do have now, that is a deterioration from a condition without circumcision to a situation where probably several hundred girls in a country such as Sweden or Norway, possibly more, are being circumcised. A position building on methodological cosmopolitanism would instead focus not on the destiny of the nation, but that of the persons involved, and would note a dramatic decline in the number of cases following migration to the West. Many Somali, Ethiopian and other immigrants in Europe avoid circumcising their daughters, which they would almost certainly have done had they not migrated (Johnsdotter 2002). The nationalist conclusion would be that persons from these areas should be kept outside of the country or be surveilled closely by the authorities, so that Western country X does not get more female circumcision than necessary, while a cosmopolitan conclusion would be that immigration from exactly these areas should be encouraged, so that as many as possible are allowed to evade the knife. Any social or cultural phenomenon must, in other words, be seen from several perspectives in order to be understood. If there is a common cultural identity in a European country such as Finland or Norway today, it cannot be described as a list of cultural traits or substantial values, but rather as conditions for communication, that is mutual comprehension. A strong form of evidence for cultural commonalities is the possibility of proper disagreement, which indicates a shared fund of common understandings. This theme is inscribed into the long conversation about who we are, which must immediately be supplemented by the question ‘what does we mean?’ – and, through simple dialectical negation, ‘what does they mean?’. Many languages distinguish between several words referring to different kinds of communities, and which are all translated with the word ‘we’ in Western languages, for example ‘we who are together in this room now’, ‘we, that is you and I’, ‘we, that is my clan’, or ‘we, the people of Z’.

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 The Meaning of ‘We’

The inclusion and exclusion denoted by the word ‘we’ is, obviously, situationally contingent. When politicians speak, possibly unthinkingly, about ‘our children and the immigrants’ children’ in debates about, for example, the minority percentage in schools, they reproduce notions of ethnic nationhood which are being contested by others. What is required to constitute a ‘we’, be it big or small, depends on the circumstances. Sometimes, it suffices to take the bus together to feel as a ‘we’, but at other times, it may be necessary to share language, physical appearance, religion and place of origin. Any complex society offers an almost infinite number of possible criteria for delineating subjective communities for whom the term ‘we’ can be used meaningfully: Us, the members of the Swedish People’s Party in Finland. Us commuters. Us lesbians. Us jazz musicians. Us Christians. Us copywriters. Us women. The underlying question remains, and is made acutely relevant in such differentiated societies as these, whose underlying symbolic basis exists for a shared subjective identity which is overarching and totalising, and which can make it meaningful still to speak of a country as a society, that is something other than a mere administrative entity. Methodological nationalism, which is based on the assumption that the social is limited by the boundaries of a nation-state, has been severely criticised in recent social theory, as an insufficient methodology for identifying and understanding fundamental social processes taking place today, which may just as well be transnational as national. Nationalist ideology has likewise been criticised, often along normative lines, for being unhelpful and immoral if one aims for a universalist humanism. Yet, the nation still has, in many parts of the world, an indisputable and enduring ability to create strong abstract communities, quite the contrary of what many theorists of globalisation predicted towards the end of the last century. The political struggles and debates dividing many European populations these days do not concern the nation as such, but how it should be delineated symbolically and demographically; who should be included, and on what conditions. The nation must now share the field of belonging with various other symbolic communities, many of them transnational, but it remains an important focus for identification. Whether it succeeds or fails in relation to different persons and groups, depends on what it has to offer, instrumentally and symbolically. The nation, seen as a metaphorical kin group or an abstract community, is nonetheless under pressure, thanks to a large number of both transnational, supranational and subnational processes which do not conform to its logic and indeed appear to threaten it. At the same time, it is doubtlessly correct that a certain degree of national cohesion is necessary for the economy, the public sphere and civil society to function satisfactorily, since such institutions presuppose trust. A society arguably needs a ‘social glue’, whether or not of the kind intimated by Godelier. Now, nations never were particularly homogeneous, even before the recent waves of immigration began. As many have shown, it is possible to identify considerable cultural variation within any nation, and this variation does not necessarily follow



The need for complex methods 

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ethnic lines. In terms of dialect, way of life, the role of religion and kinship practices, intra-ethnic diversity is considerable even in a smallish country such as Finland. However, this kind of variation does not necessarily imply variation regarding the strength or degree of national identification. As Jan-Petter Blom demonstrated many years ago (Blom 1969), there existed considerable cultural variation between mountain farmers and lowland farmers in central Southern Norway, with no consequences for collective identification or exclusion/inclusion. There were no norms of endogamy or concerted politics of identity taking place in spite of clearly observable cultural differences between the categories. This example shows that whereas culture is continuous, identities are discontinuous. Culture – symbolic universes of meaning – flow and mix; one is influenced by one’s experiences, surroundings and impulses from near and afar, and many such impulses do in fact flow quite freely, unhampered by state boundaries, cultural border guards or capitalist profitability. Collective identity, on the other hand, is bounded: Either one is a member of the group, or one is not. This is why there always exist criteria for group membership, but for the same reason – the gap between cultural flows and group identities – there tends to be disagreement over the placing of the boundaries. The burning question in many societies in our day and age concerns the criteria. As far as the nation is concerned, Ernest Gellner wrote in his influential book on nationalism (Gellner 1983) that nationalist ideology proposes that cultural boundaries should be coterminous with the political boundaries, which is to say that a state should ideally only contain people of the same kind. This kind of definition begs the question, however, since there is no uncontroversial way of determining who is ‘of the same kind’. When the map no longer fits with the territory, there is disagreement over whether the map (ideology of nationhood) ought to be changed, or whether one should rather change the territory (refuse citizenship to minorities, enforce their cultural assimilation, or stop migration, etc.). In the gap between the relatively free flows of cultural meaning and the theoretically fixed boundaries of identities, it is easy to find both a thorny political terrain and a fertile field for social research. There exists a frontier area, or a grey zone, which expands and contracts from situation to situation, but which as a whole grows, and where the boundaries for inclusion and exclusion are under negotiation. An analytical approach to these issues must be dialectical in that it accepts that every phenomenon is defined through its opposite, implicitly or explicitly. Openness in one respect entails closedness in another. The French nation, based on Republican values as it is, has historically been open to newcomers, but the guardians of the French language have to the best of their abilities tried to close it off from unwanted impulses from the outside. If one says ‘similarity’, one also says, implicitly, ‘difference’: No two individuals are completely identical, and certain differences are always tolerated, even in societies where the hegemonic ideology is founded on the principle of similarity. Integration also entails disintegration:

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 The Meaning of ‘We’

When politicians and others talk of the need for immigrants to ‘be integrated’, they simultaneously refer to a society where criteria for integration are by no means settled. Since the postwar years, North European societies have changed dramatically – urbanisation, migration, changes in the labour market, new family structures, new information technology – and it would be unwise to assume that our present societies are mere updates of their antecedents. For example, it cannot be taken for granted which cohesive and fragmenting – centripetal and centrifugal – forces characterise contemporary Norwegian society. It would be intellectually lazy to assume that a national sense of identity, for example, is a necessary condition for cohesion in this or that society, or that such entities can easily be gauged and measured. As I shall discuss below, a person may well be integrated in one respect and disintegrated in another. The different parts of a cultural universe change at different speeds, a phenomenon which creates dissonance, and a society may be well integrated without its culture being similarly integrated.

1.3 The dual revolution of the 21st century Nobody presumably disagrees with the view that the world has changed in perceptible ways since the end of the postwar years. Yet, it would be inaccurate simply to claim that social and cultural complexity (according to one definition or another) has become greater. Ethnic diversity and encounters across linguistic and cultural boundaries were more widespread in many traditional communities than in modern nation-states, which have often pursued policies of active homogenisation and exclusion in order to create cultural similarity. And, it is far from certain that contemporary societies are linguistically and culturally more diverse than some of the cultural crossroads – market and trading towns, ports etc. –  which existed in premodern or early modern times. Yet, it does make sense to speak of the present era as a period with some important new characteristics. Back in 1998, Manuel Castells wrote the following, in a lengthy footnote towards the end of his three-volume The Information Age: Why is this a new world? ... Chips and computers are new; ubiquitous, mobile telecommunications are new, genetic engineering is new; electronically integrated, global financial markets working in real time are new; an inter-linked capitalist economy embracing the whole planet, and not only some of its segments, is new; a majority of the urban labor force in knowledge and information processing in advanced economies is new; a majority of urban population in the planet is new; the demise of the Soviet Empire, the fading away of communism, and the end of the Cold War are new; the rise of the Asian Pacific as an equal partner in the global economy is new; the widespread challenge to patriarchalism is new; the universal consciousness on ecological preservation is new; and the emergence of a network society, based on a space of flows, and on timeless time, is historically new (Castells 1998:336).



The dual revolution of the 21st century 

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A few years later, he could have added the advent of deterritorialised warfare and political battles involving the question of humanly induced climate change to the list. He might also have spoken of post-Fordist flexible accumulation (Harvey 1989) and mass migration (Castles and Davidson 2000). Since around 1990, when the Cold War faded into oblivion to be replaced by a series of new geopolitical conflicts often based on nationality, ethnicity or religion, two related tendencies have contributed to shaping life-worlds worldwide, but not least in Western Europe; the electronic revolution and ethnic/cultural diversification. Since mobile telephones and internet access became widespread in the countries of Northern Europe in the early 1990s, the ties connecting people to cultural identities and place have become ever more unclear. With the emergence of Web 2.0 (based primarily on communication, not information) since the early years of the 21st century, it is increasingly possible to build and maintain almost fully assorted social worlds which are entirely deterritoralised. Flexibility, which may be defined as uncommitted potential for change (Bateson 1972, Eriksen 2005), has been enhanced in nearly every field to do with deterritorialised communication. The nation-state thereby loses one of its main means for creating shared identities, namely territorially based communication. However, research on internet use (Miller and Slater 2000; Eriksen 2001; Uimonen 2001) indicates that ethnic, local, religious and national identities are not necessarily weakened by the new technologies, but that they are re-shaped, often independently of political power structures. One implication for polyethnic societies is nonetheless that long distance nationalism (Anderson 1992; Fuglerud 1999) and diaspora based identity politics have been boosted considerably by the new technologies, making it simple to connect and keep connected people who cannot meet in the flesh. The growth in ethnic complexity has also been considerable and, in the space of a few decades, has changed the demographic composition of many cities. Now, of course migration is not new, and as noted previously the global proportion of people living outside of their country of birth was higher in 1911 than it is in 2011, but the current situation with people from practically all parts of the world living closely together in large cities, is new. Drawing on research in London, Vertovec (2006) has spoken of super-diversity. For many years, most immigrants in London had a background from the colonies, and they lived in particular quarters and suburbs where they had their shops, places of worship and organisations. Since the mid-1990s, the dominant pattern of immigration has shifted, and the largest new groups, such as Iraqis, Poles and Somalis, have no historical connection with the British Empire. In addition, immigrants now increasingly live in a randomly scattered mode and not in particular areas; and finally, it is no longer easy to decide who is an immigrant and who is not. Apart from legitimate labour migrants, chiefly from the EU and Australia, there are seasonal workers (who do not necessarily know when or if they are going home), students employed in the informal sector, refugees with asylum papers and asylum seekers who are either waiting for a decision or have been rejected and live

12 

 The Meaning of ‘We’

underground, tourists who have ‘forgotten’ to return home and an unknown number of persons who have entered the country illegally. Apart from all these categories, there are grey zones and ambiguous cases, and there are many who live in London without knowing whether they are immigrants or not – a statistician’s nightmare, perhaps, but a realistic depiction of the uncertainty under which many foreigners live. Vertovec once mentioned during a seminar that the number of languages now spoken in London is over 300. The figure is impressive, but a web search showed that the number of languages spoken only in the south-eastern borough of Søndre Nordstrand in Oslo, was well over 130! Super-diversity is, in other words, not a phenomenon confined to the UK. The growth in immigrant numbers in nearly all West European countries has been enormous since around 1990, in many cases representing a doubling or trebling of the 1990 figures. In Norway, the proportion of the population with a minority background grew from five to ten per cent between 1995 and 2010 (Statistics Norway 2011). The growth in immigrant populations has not been as fast as the growth of the World Wide Web, but the two processes should be seen as two sides of the same coin. Both the electronic revolution and the polyethnic one contribute to placing stable, territorially based identities under pressure. The Herderian and nationalist formula ‘a people = an ethnic group = a territory = a state = a language’ does not function properly in a situation like this. This is why debates about national identity have been so widespread in so many European countries in the last couple of decades. The new complexity, epitomised in these two processes, has grown out of a period characterised by consolidation, homogenisation and the production of similarity. Gellner has compared pre-modern Europe with a painting by Oskar Kokoschka, the Viennese artist known for his intricate, mosaic-like pictures with thousands of colourful little dots. By contrast, Europe after the great levelling of nationalism had taken place, could be compared with a picture by Amedeo Modigliani, whose most famous pictures are dominated by large, serene, monochromatic areas. In a comment on Gellner, however, Ulf Hannerz (1996) claims that Kokoschka appears to have returned to a time when large cities increasingly become cultural crossroads and transit terminals, when all forms of mobility and movement become faster and smoother, and where identity politics at the micro level ensure that many newcomers resist assimilation to the majority. There is simultaneously something very new and something much older about the contemporary world. Towards the end of a book about Al-Qaeda and what it means to be modern, John Gray (2003) writes that ‘it is the interaction between growing scientific knowledge and unchanging human needs that will determine the future of our species’. Put differently: Changing circumstances must be taken into account in every narrative attempting to make sense of the world in which one lives. The development of new technology and science create new frameworks for human projects, which are still anchored in fundamental human experiences such as community and alienation, security and individuality. This is perhaps nowhere clearer than in the identity politics of the early 21st century.



Tensions in the 21st century world 

 13

1.4 Tensions in the 21st century world The two ‘revolutions’ that by and large define the world after the end of the post-war years took off around 1990. It was at roughly this time, too, that the cold war was called off once and for all, resulting in the immediate demise of the global two-bloc system. The ideological conflict between socialism and capitalism appeared to have been replaced by the triumphant sound of one hand clapping. By late 1990, it was also clear that apartheid was about to go; Mandela had been released from prison, and negotiations between the Nationalist Party and the ANC had begun in earnest. The following year, Yugoslavia began to dismantle itself with surprising violence, fed by a kind of nationalistic sentiment many believed to have been overcome. Around the same time, the Hindu nationalists of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party, Indian People’s Party) went from strength to strength in India. The identity politics of the state, or of state like bodies, was thus not something of the past. In other words, openness and closure were still twin features of politics, but they were operating along new lines. 1991 was also the year in which the Internet began to be marketed to ordinary consumers, so that Mr. and Mrs. Smith could enter the shop and buy their subscription to America Online. This was new, just as new as the small pocket-sized mobile phones that all of a sudden began to spread all over the world, from Mauritius to Iceland, around the same time. Deregulation of markets had taken place in the preceding decade, but many of the effects of a weaker state and a less manageable and predictable market were being felt only now, helped by new information and communication technology. This post-1991 world is, in addition to everything else, one of intensified tensions and frictions. One needs to only count the present number of transatlantic flights or the number of transpacific telephone connections to realise that the webs of connectedness are hotter, faster and denser than in any previous period, with repercussions virtually everywhere. The growth of urban slums throughout the Third World is an indirect result of economic globalisation (Davis 2006), just as the relative disconnectedness from the Internet in Africa – bracket South Africa, and there are more Austrians than Africans online – is a significant fact alongside the growth in text messages in China, from nil to eighteen billion a month in less than ten years. The networked capitalist world, in a word, is a framework, or scaffolding, for almost any serious inquiry into cultural and social dynamics. This is an accelerated world, where everything from communication to warfare and industrial production takes place faster and more comprehensively than ever before. Speed, in physics, is just another way of talking about heat. In other words, when one says of someone that he or she is suffering from burnout, the metaphor is apt. The burnout is a direct consequence of too much speed. This, I believe, is a main reason why the notion of global warming has caught on in such a powerful way in the North Atlantic middle classes. The risk of global warming

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 The Meaning of ‘We’

may be real, but that is not the point: By focussing on literal heat as an unintentional consequence of modernity, the narratives about global warming fit perfectly with, enrich and supplement, the other narratives about the contemporary age. It functions as a natural-science corollary of stories about terrorism and imperialism. All these narratives, and their relations, depict the contemporary world as one ‘out of control’, fraught with alienation, powerlessness, global forces and injustices brought about, and reproduced, by the rich and powerful – yet they are, without knowing it, digging their own grave. Above all, the notion of global warming feeds into an even more comprehensive story about acceleration. Zones of tension are manifold in this world. In addition to the old and perhaps universal lines of conflict – power versus powerlessness, wealth versus poverty, autonomy versus dependence – new conflicts, frictions and tensions appear today: –– Globalisation versus alter-globalisation – the new social movements looking for viable, locally based alternatives to the TINA doctrine (‘There Is No Alternative’); –– Environmentalism versus development – a very real, if undercommunicated tension in countries like China and India, but also in the rich countries (my native, oil-rich Norway being an excellent example); –– Cosmopolitanism versus identity politics (including xenophobia and religious fundamentalism) – a main dimension of politics almost everywhere in the world now, sometimes supplanting the left/right divide; –– Inclusion versus exclusion – walls, physical and metaphorical, preventing the free movement of people and their full inclusion in society; –– Uniformity versus diversity – shared templates of modernity articulating with local specificity; and finally –– Cultural autonomy versus the quest for recognition – finding the balance, as LéviStrauss once put it, between contact and isolation. The zones of tension briefly mentioned above cannot be reduced to one another, although they are arguably related. The common denominators are increased speed and intensified friction. This situation entails a need for a new set of traffic rules – a global highway code for interaction. Movement is being regulated. Laws regulating immigration and citizenship are obvious examples, but one might also mention the attempts in certain countries to protect the local language(s) from unwanted contamination from the outside (usually English), and puritanist religious currents such as the Deobandi movement in Pakistan, which tries to purge domestic Islam of Hindu and syncretist influence. Boundary work is always an important element of personal and collective identification processes, and it is now carried out with especial fervour and a sense of urgency: Who is inside and outside the group, what are the criteria for being an insider, and what does it mean to be an individual with proper, socially recognised credentials and personal integrity?



Dominant relations of inclusion and exclusion 

 15

1.5 Dominant relations of inclusion and exclusion Let us now return to the initial questions concerning what a society is, and what the term ‘we’ can mean in this era. Collective identities are always defined in relation to that which they are not. They are, in a word, relational. Relational positioning is expressed through two main ways: contrasting and matching (Eriksen 2010). Contrasting implies that one defines oneself as the opposite of the other; matching that one defines oneself as structurally equal to the other. As shown by the chapters in this book with a direct focus on minorities such as Sámi or Romani in Finland, minorities tend to combine both strategies in a bid to be recognised as ‘equal but different’. Majorities in contemporary European countries tend to be split between a contrasting strategy, seen clearly in the Islamophobic tendencies criss-crossing the continent; and a matching strategy where structural equivalents and compatibilities are sought. Dominant relationships, seen from a minority perspective, tend to be the connections that link them to the majority. Majorities have more options, since they have several ‘others’ to choose from. Both religion, race and language may be invoked as contrasting devices. Yet other kinds of relationships framing the logic of inclusion and exclusion in a complex society may also be invoked. In a public lecture given in 2008, Steven Vertovec speaks of a current complexification in the relationships defining the insider/outsider boundary in Europe, making plain exclusion more difficult than before: [O]ver the last ten years in the UK, in Germany, across Europe – basically by way of changing global patterns of migration – we’ve seen a lot of the long-standing patterns of migration diversifying, particularly by way of the relationship between all these sorts of variables (country of origin, gender, legal status, duration of stay, etc. ... ). So now you have a new configuration, indeed, of all these different variables in relation to each other (Vertovec 2008:6).

Internal variation within every minority, whether it is constituted on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or language, always makes it problematic to generalise about the characteristics of named groups in a society. The current situation, according to Vertovec (and I think he is right), makes such generalisations even more problematic than before, since the diversity of migrant experiences and migrant projects is greater than ever before, and majority encounters and experiences with members of minorities also become more diverse and varied. In spite of these caveats, it is fair to assume that some ways of producing differences, some types of relationship, will continue to dominate; that identity constructions will tend to gravitate towards what we could call a semantic core, that is an ideal-typical symbolic centre which is relatively unchanging, often associated with core symbols such as flags, core state rituals such as national days, or core cultural practices such as Christmas celebrations or food habits.

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 The Meaning of ‘We’

In the relationship between majority and minorities, religion and race are often mentioned as constitutive. However, one should be wary of exaggerating the importance of new, visible and spectacular differences. Race, language and religion are easy to identify and easy to do research on. This does not, however, mean that other kinds of relationships cannot be more dominant, even if they are less marked in discourse on boundaries and social contrasts in a given society. The fact that the educational attainment and income of parents have a decisive impact on a person’s possibilities in the labour market is well documented, and is significant both among majorities and minorities to the extent that it tends to overrule differences resulting from ethnic discrimination. If one were to emphasise these kinds of differences rather than those to do with ethnicity and religion, the map of the new Europe would have looked different. Religions function in a vertically integrative manner – upstairs and downstairs meet in the house of worship – while class functions horizontally integrative. Which zones of tension will predominate in the future, depends on which relations are given precedence in politics and public discourse – religion, race, class or something different altogether. The world is no more ethnic than we choose to make it.

1.6 What is integration? A recurrent problem in the ongoing public debates about social integration is that one rarely says, or asks, what kind of integration is at stake. For example, politicians and bureaucrats all over Europe talk of the importance of ‘integrating immigrants’, with no further qualification. When the term ‘integration’ is being used, however, it is necessary to clarify who is supposed to be integrated to what and by whom. Credible answers to this kind of question bring us several steps closer to an answer to the question of what a society is. In order to ask questions about integration accurately, the term must be narrowed down; in fact, it can refer to very different types of processes. Firstly, it is necessary to distinguish between systemic and social integration, a conceptual pair first proposed by Giddens (1979). Systemic integration refers to the macro level, that is the social institutions, their stability and ability to maintain themselves relatively independently of the actors. Social integration, by contrast, refers to people’s relational belonging, operative networks and ‘social capital’ (Coleman 1998). It is perfectly possible to be well integrated socially in a society which is poorly integrated at a systemic level. In many African countries, where the state is weak and the shared formal institutions, from police and judiciary to sewage and electricity supply, are in poor shape, the inhabitants may nonetheless be well integrated socially through kinship, informal networks and other social relationships which create trust and mutual commitments. Conversely, it is possible for a person to live in a society which is well integrated at the systemic level without being well



What is integration? 

 17

socially integrated him- or herself. The fact that the buses run on time and the bureaucracy is incorruptible and efficient, says nothing about the scope and quality of the citizens’ social networks and subjective sense of belonging. Secondly, a distinction between informal and formal relationships is necessary. Such a contrast, which may be highly relevant for the study of multiethnic societies in a situation of rapid change, would take, as its point of departure, the relationship between systemic and social integration, but grafts this contrast onto a distinction of a different kind. The concept of the informal sector in the economy, first introduced by Keith Hart in a study of outdoor markets in Ghana (Hart 1973), calls attention to those economic activities that take place between individuals and groups without being recorded or registered anywhere. Exchange of services without any accounting for the exchange of money (or direct payment without receipts etc.) would be a typical example. Now, regarding social integration more generally, informal networks are very important. The widespread concept ‘social capital’ refers to the reach, scope and resources flowing through such networks. Granovetter’s influential work on ‘the strength of weak ties’ (Granovetter 1973, 1983) discusses the relationship between strong and weak ties. The strong connections, to relatives and close friends, display a high degree of redundancy; it is likely that your close friends also know each other. Weak ties, of which people have many in a complex society, tend to comprise people who do not know each other very well. Persons who possess many weak ties have greater access to diverse information from the outside world than people who are limited to a few, strong ties, and also more social possibilities. The analysis of weak versus strong ties reminds us that the informal social life is crucial for the maintenance of the system. Granovetter moreover argues that ideas are disseminated faster in a society with many weak ties than one dominated by strong ties. The tendency in the kind of society scrutinised in this book – the complexifying modern nation-state – would normally be a growth in the number and reach of weak ties, but another possibility could be segregation in bounded groups, in which each maintains its integrity and collective identity through the cultivation of strong ties internally. This would be the case with strongly incorporated minorities which are also endogamous. The concept of ‘parallel societies’, sometimes used disparagingly about ethnically complex societies, refers to such a situation, which was also documented in mid-20th century studies of ‘plural societies’ such as British Burma and Jamaica (Furnivall 1948; Smith 1965). Thirdly, social integration is not the same as cultural integration. Possibly thanks to influence from American cultural anthropology, there is a tendency in much of the Scandinavian literature on pluralism to write about ‘societies’ and ‘cultures’ as though they were synonymous. This conflation of two very distinctive phenomena can only deepen the already significant confusion typical of the public debate. Although cultural meaning and social interaction coexist empirically, they must be disentangled analytically. Many years ago, Clifford Geertz followed the lead of Talcott

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 The Meaning of ‘We’

Parsons in distinguishing between culture, integrated in a ‘logico-meaningful way’ and society, integrated in a ‘causal-functional way’ (Geertz 1973). This meant that social and cultural dynamics could be studied relatively independently of each other. Shared meaning, i.e. that one understands the world in roughly the same way and also largely understands each other, can emerge without interaction; and certain forms of interaction (such as trade or war) can take place without much by way of shared understandings. Such a perspective, however, draws the boundary between the social and the cultural in too absolute a way (Eriksen 1992). The Greek concept habitus, used to great effect by Marcel Mauss and Norbert Elias in 20th century social science (and stolen much later by Pierre Bourdieu), refers to the merging of cultural interpretations and social behaviour that takes place when the body develops enduring dispositions for action. The abhorrence of pork among Jews and Muslims is a cultural value with social consequences – it is both symbolic and enacted. Still, it can be meaningful to distinguish between the social and the cultural. Let me give an example: Two persons live in the same block of flats in eastern Oslo. One of them is a Somali woman with four children. The husband no longer lives with them, and she has filed for divorce. She barely understands Norwegian, and uses the children as interpreters in her meetings with representatives of the authorities. When the tax return form arrives, she throws it in the bin, believing it to be an ad brochure. She covers her body before leaving the flat and gets her daily dose of verbal harassment on the street. She has never worked and is functionally illiterate. This woman is, briefly, a classic example of a poorly integrated immigrant following the commonsensical and political views dominating local perceptions. Her neighbour, on the next floor, is a single Norwegian in his thirties. He has no problems making himself understood and demanding his rights in the welfare office; he knows where everything is in the supermarket and submits his betting coupon without a problem every week. He is in full command of his remote control, knows what is showing on the cinemas downtown, and laughs at every joke made by a TV comedian. Nobody sneers at him when he leaves the flat; he is phenotypically unmarked. Which of them is more integrated? Before proceeding to answer, we may add that the woman has a long list of persons she can ring up if she has a problem, that she sends a hundred euros a month to her sister in Somalia and knows that her children are likely to get a better life in Oslo than they would in Somalia. Her upstairs neighbour, by contrast, knows nobody. He is on greeting terms with a couple of dozen people in the suburb, but he has nobody to call if anything comes up in his life. The short answer is that the man is culturally, but not socially integrated; while the woman is socially integrated (in her Gemeinschaft) but not culturally integrated (in her local community and country of residence). These examples may represent extremes. The point is, nevertheless, that cultural integration (the production of shared meaning) is not necessarily accompanied by



What is integration? 

 19

social integration (that is committing, stable networks made up by interaction). In many multiethnic societies, there is a clear tendency of cultural convergence following a certain period of close coexistence – language shift, for example, tends to take place after two or three generations – without being accompanied by the disappearance of ethnic networks. Culture varies along a continuum, while social communities are – at least in theory – sharply delineated. Culture is continuous; identities are discontinuous. Fourthly, integration takes place at several levels of scale. Scale is not the same as macro and micro (which is dealt with in the contrast between social and systemic integration), but refers to the reach and scope of the networks within which one is acting. When acting on a small scale, one is integrated with a few people – family gatherings, school classes and private dinner parties are smallscale events. When acting on a large scale, by contrast, one is integrated with a potentially unlimited number of others, but there is often an inversely proportional relationship between the size of the network and its cohesive power. You are loosely integrated with many when you pull out your VISA card in a remote city, but closely integrated with a few when lounging on the beach with your nuclear family. A football training session is in itself an event on a small scale, but as soon as the team joins a tournament, the scale grows, and it continues to do so when the team plays in a European cup. Scale is a measure of complexity and the potential reach of individuals through their networks. In order to study and gauge the degree of cohesion in contemporary societies, integration through various levels of scale is a key factor. It is, for example, a common assumption that minority persons often miss job opportunities because they lack informal networks (‘someone to ring up’) and the informal cultural competence needed to create intimacy and weak ties. In certain situations, as when they send remittances to family members in Sri Lanka or go on hajj to Mecca, many immigrants participate in networks on a large scale; but the social capital they accumulate in this way can rarely be converted to a currency which can be spent in competition over scarce resources in Europe. Both methodologically (‘what are we studying’) and empirically (‘what kinds of social glue and solvents exist out there’), there are sound reasons to specify levels of scale when one speaks of integration, whether one has cultural or social aspects in mind. The concern over ‘loss of national identities’ which is being expressed almost everywhere, is frequently a result of the experience that cultural integration takes place at too high a level of scale, that is transnationally or globally: People watch American television rather than listening to local musicians, and so on – or it could be that the level of scale is deemed too low and local, thus incapable of mobilising inhabitants countrywide for an abstract community. The debates about the future of the nation-state and its presumed reduced power can, in this way, be understood as debates about which level of social scale is appropriate. There exists a widespread perception that important political

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 The Meaning of ‘We’

decisions are taken elsewhere, and that important economic processes take place transnationally in ways difficult to govern. There is no easy way out, either politically or intellectually, when confronted with the dual question raised in this essay – ‘what is a society?’ and ‘who are we?’. There are no quick fixes or simple answers, but the contribution from social theory and empirical research may at the very least make it possible to raise the questions in an accurate and constructive way, as we continue on our journey through the world of the twenty-first century, divided by a shared destiny as we are, eternally busy rebuilding the ship at sea.

References Anderson, B. 1992. Long Distance Nationalism: World Capitalism and the Rise of Identity Politics. Amsterdam, Netherlands: CASA. Bateson, G. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine. __________ . 1979. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. London, UK: Fontana. Bauman, Z. 2000. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Beck, U. 2009. World at Risk. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Blom, J. P. 1969. “Ethnic and cultural differentiation.” Pp. 75–85 in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of Culture Difference, edited by F. Barth. Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget. Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Castells, M. 1996–98. The Information Age. (3 vols.) Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Castles, S. and A. Davidson. 2000. Citizenship and Migration: Globalization and the Politics of Belonging. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Castles, S. and M. J. Miller. 2003. The Age of Migration, 3rd ed. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Coleman, J. 1998. “Social capital in the creation of human capital.” American Journal of Sociology 94 (supp.): 95–120. Connerton, P. 2009. How Modernity Forgets. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Davis, M. 2006. Planet of Slums. London, UK: Verso. Eriksen, T. H. 1992. “Multiple traditions and the question of cultural integration.” Ethnos 57 (1-2): 5-30. __________ . 2001. Tyranny of the Moment: Fast and Slow Time in the Information Age. London, UK: Pluto. __________ . 2005. “Mind the gap: Flexibility, epistemology and the rhetoric of new work.” Cybernetics & Human Knowing 12 (1): 50-60. __________. 2010. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives. 3rd ed. London, UK: Pluto. Eriksen, T. H., E. Bal and O. Salemink, (eds). 2010. A World of Insecurity. London, UK: Pluto. Fuglerud, Ø. 1999. Life on the Outside. The Tamil Diaspora and Long-Distance Nationalism. London, UK: Pluto. Furnivall, J.S. 1948. Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Geertz, C. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Gellner, E. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

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Giddens, A. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. __________. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge, UK: Polity. __________. 1993. Sociology. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Godelier, M. 2009. In and Out of the West: Reconstructing Anthropology. London, UK: Verso. Granovetter, M. 1973. “The strength of weak ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360-1380. __________. 1983. “The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited.” Sociological Theory 1 (2): 201-33. Gray, J. 2003. Al-Qaeda and What It Means to be Modern. London, UK: Faber. Hannerz, U. 1996. Transnational Connections. London, UK: Routledge. Hart, K. 1973. “Informal income opportunities and urban employment in Ghana.” Journal of Modern African Studies 11 (1): 61-89. Harvey, D. 1989. The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Johnsdotter, S. 2002. Created by God: How Somalis in Swedish Exile Reassess the Practice of Female Circumcision. Doctoral dissertation. Lund, Sweden: Department of Social Anthropology. Keesing, R. M. 1981. Cultural Anthropology: A Contemporary Perspective. Fort Worth, TX: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Miller, D. and D. Slater. 2000. The Internet – An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford, UK: Berg. Smith, M.G. 1965. The Plural Society of the British West Indies. London, UK: Sangster’s. (In the British west indies?) Statistics Norway. 2011. “Immigration and Immigrants.” Retrieved May 24, 2011 (http://www.ssb.no/ english/subjects/00/00/10/innvandring_en/). Talle, A. 2007. “Female Circumcision in Africa and Beyond: The Anthropology of a Difficult Issue.” Pp. 91-106 in Transcultural Bodies. Female Genital Cutting in Global Context, edited by Y. Hernlund and B. S. Duncan. Chapel Hill, NC: Rutgers University Press. Uimonen, P. 2001. [email protected]: Internet, Modernization and Globalization. Doctoral dissertation. Stockholm, Sweden: Department of Social Anthropology. Urry, J. 2000. Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century. London, UK: Routledge. Vertovec, S. 2006. The emergence of super-diversity in Britain. Working paper no. 25. Oxford, UK: COMPAS. __________ . 2008. Conceiving and researching diversity. Lecture at the Center for Advanced Studies, Munich, Germany, November 19, 2008.

Peter Kivisto

2 The Politics of Integration Achieving solidarity—and it needs to be construed as something to be achieved rather than taken as a given—constitutes one of the most pressing demands of highly differentiated modern societies. Indeed, David Hollinger (2006: 23-24) contends that solidarity is “shaping up as the problem of the twenty-first century.” Since Durkheim’s efforts a century earlier to comprehend the new bases for order and harmony in what he characterized as societies predicated on organic solidarity, theorists have sought to understand the habits of mind and social conditions essential for, as Iris Marion Young (2011: 120) put it, “separate and dissimilar actors [to] decide to stand together for one another.” This places front and center two of Eriksen’s binaries in the preceding chapter—inclusion/exclusion and uniformity/diversity—which are central in determining the precise boundaries of “we” in any particular place at any particular time. As Hauke Brunkhorst (2005: 5) describes the integrative processes of modern societies as he borrows language from Niklas Luhmnann, “Solidarity dialectically combines opposites, contradictions, and differences. The differences, heterogeneity, and fragmentation that ‘can still be held together’ are the ‘criterion for solidarity’.” If Brunkhorst is correct, we live in a multicultural age, one in which multiculturalism as a mode of incorporation takes root far more powerfully than it has in the past, albeit under different names, such as cultural pluralism. In fact, I will advance just such an argument in the following section. However doing so does not imply naiveté regarding resistance to expanding the boundaries of the societal community by allowing inside the core those minority groups—indigenous peoples, ethnonational minorities, and immigrants—who have heretofore been situated on the periphery. Indeed, the backlash to multiculturalism is real, with its critics seeking to promote exclusion rather than inclusion and demanding a unitary or homogeneous national culture rather than a pluralistic one. These critics are, as Martha Nussbaum (2012) put it, proponents of "the politics of fear"—fear that the nation, its culture and institutions, are being undermined by diversity. They include not only dangerous, extremist groups operating outside of legitimate political channels, but also radical right political parties that work within existing political structures. That their views have tapped into the considerable unease within the publics of the world's liberal democracies can be seen from the fact that they have had an impact on mainstream parties, which have proven willing in some instances to trim their inclusive policies promoting diversity to respond to this unease (Alexander 2013). Certainly, the continental Nordic countries have not been immune from this backlash. Each of them, for example, has a right-wing populist party: the Danish People's Party, the True Finns, Norway's Progress Party, and the Sweden Democrats. This being said, the best analyses to date concerning the presumed retreat of multiculturalism, making use of empirical data from one of a variety of indexes or © 2015 Peter Kivisto This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.



Framing the analysis: Multiculturalism as claims-making 

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measures that allow for comparative analyses (MIPEX dealing explicitly with antidiscrimination, CIVIX with civic integration, and MCP, which looks at multiculturalism) can be used to place these trends into a clearer and comparative perspective. Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka (2012: 18), the creators of the MCP, have concluded that while there is evidence of “a retreat from multiculturalism policies in a few countries, this is not the dominant pattern.” What they do see is a tendency to layer over existing multicultural policies—be they thick or thin policies—new initiatives aimed at civic integration. Some have charged that this move to civic integration is an indication of the retreat or abandonment of multiculturalism, a view that Banting and Kymlicka dispute. I concur with them when they contend that “there is nothing inherently incompatible between multiculturalism and civic integration” (Banting and Kymlicka 2012: 19). Given the many misconceptions about what multiculturalism actually entails, the following section attempts to sketch out a non-normative sociological understanding of the phenomenon.

2.1 Framing the analysis: Multiculturalism as claims-making Charles Taylor has pointed out that democratic societies are inclusive insofar as they promote popular sovereignty, but this paradoxically can also contribute to exclusion. This is the case, he contends, because “of the need, in self-governing societies, of a high degree of social cohesion. Democratic states need something like a common identity” (Taylor 1998: 143). If current members define an outside group seeking entry as a threat to that common identity, they seek to effect closure rather than attempting to expand the bonds of solidarity. Groups can be excluded in a variety of ways, with such practices extending to three main groups: indigenous peoples, ethnonational minorities, and immigrants. As one of the prime spokespersons on behalf of multicultural inclusion, he sees it as a mode of incorporation that is ethically preferable to the alternative forced assimilation. In what follows, a parallel argument will be advanced, one based not on the ethics of the matter, but on the empirical reality of the ways that groups seek to negotiate the terms of inclusion. In short, the argument that follows contends that not only should we be multiculturalists, but in fact we are (Kivisto 2012). What follows is the outline of a theoretical argument that is empirically grounded. Its primary empirical referent is the US, which is the settler nation par excellence with perhaps the most diverse population in the world. However, I would argue that the model is germane to all of the globe’s wealthy liberal democracies, which is not to say that the results will be everywhere and always the same—only that the processes will proceed down parallel tracks. In short, what follows is a sociological analysis of multiculturalism that seeks to treat it, in Durkheimian terms, as a social fact. Multiculturalism ought to be viewed as a form of claims-making, expanding on Giuseppe Sciortino’s (2003: 264) barebones argument that multicultural claims

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constitute “political claims expressed by actors on behalf of a social category.” The actors in question—the claims-makers—are the more or less legitimate representatives of the category in question, in this case ethnic groups, and are generally individuals who hold leadership roles within their respective groups. What Sciortino broadly termed a social category, I prefer to call a community of fate, and contend further that the claims revolve around concerns about the fate of the community as well as the well-being of its individual members. Although a precise definition of the term community of fate does not exist, for our purposes it will suffice to note that one is typically born into this sort of community involuntarily and that members of the community experience various levels of marginalization and stigmatization. They understand the individual and the group as involved in, to borrow from Michael Dawson (1994), a “linked fate.” It is important not to reify or essentialize groups, be they defined in terms of nationality, ethnicity, or religion. Rogers Brubaker (2010; 49) stresses that such identities “need to be understood as particular ways of framing political claims, not as real boundaries inscribed in the nature of things.” With this in mind, claims-making takes place within the public spaces afforded by liberal democracies, where efforts can be made to mobilize support in the court of public opinion. But claims-making is also directed at the state, for success often requires specific legislative actions or court decisions to translate multicultural aspirations into concrete institutionalized practices and policies. These claims should typically be viewed as appeals to the state, and not as postnationalist challenges to it (Koopmans and Statham 1999). Five types of political demands can be distinguished: exemption, accommodation, preservation, redress, and inclusion. A brief look at each of these will indicate that, contrary to critics such as Samuel Huntington (2004) and Christopher Caldwell 2009), and to some of multiculturalism’s advocates, as well, such claims-making is not entirely new. Indeed, if this is what multiculturalism amounts to, then multiculturalism clearly existed avant la lettre, and one can point to examples involving both groups that arrived in the past and those who have arrived more recently. Exemption refers to calls for differential treatment of a group by waiving certain laws, rules, regulations, and the like in order to allow a group to maintain certain practices deemed to be demanded by its cultural values. Examples include the Amish seeking an exemption to pay into the Social Security system on the grounds that they are theologically opposed to insurance; practitioners of Santeria who have sought permission to engage in animal sacrifice in spite of law prohibiting the practice based on arguments involving public health or cruelty to animals; and Sikhs who have gone to court to seek an exemption from mandatory motorcycle helmet laws. Accommodation is similar to but often less controversial than exemption. It entails a call for reasonable adjustments that will permit people to remain part of the societal mainstream—keeping jobs, doing well in school, and so forth—while also being true to their ethnic identity. For example, an Orthodox Jew might ask an employer to not be scheduled to work on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, making up the time



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in a mutually agreed upon way. Likewise, Muslim employees might request that an employer provide the time and space to permit them to pray during the times that the call to prayer occurs during the workday, while making up that time in a mutually agreed upon way. The next two types of claims-making are more controversial than the preceding two, and tend in general to come from ethnonational groups and indigenous peoples rather than from immigrants. Groups seeking to preserve the community or aspects of its culture sometimes conclude that they can’t do it alone and thus they appeal to the larger society for assistance, particularly to the state to pass legislation that will serve to protect a culture and preserve a collective identity. Given that language is an especially tangible manifestation of a culture and a primary vehicle for its articulation, it’s not surprising that calls for preservation frequently revolve around language. In the nineteenth century, German immigrants in the US exerted political pressure in a number of cities on public school systems to provide instruction in all subjects in German. In some cities, when enough parents requested it, German became the sole language of instruction, while in other places bilingual instruction was mandated. This would change as a nativist backlash sought to mandate instruction solely in English (Daniels 1990: 159-160), and by the time that the post-1965 immigration wave commenced, preservation had given way to bilingual instruction as a means for transitioning to English-language proficiency. Thus, any contemporary effort to engage public resources to actually preserve languages is confined to Native Americans, as is evident in the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act of 2006, which promotes programs designed to allow American Indian languages to survive and in some instances to be restored. Redress is predicated on a reading of history that concludes that grave injustices have been inflicted on a community of fate, injustices than can only be rectified by various sorts of compensatory actions, typically on the part of the state. Indigenous peoples who had their lands and ways of life undermined by European colonizers constitute a prime example, with numerous court cases having been undertaken in efforts to rectify treaty violations. This sort of claims-making is evident in calls for affirmative action by African Americans whose lives continue to be impacted by the legacy of slavery and the caste-like system of Jim Crow. Groups residing in the nation as a result of voluntary immigration have not been inclined to make this type of claim. Before turning to the final type, note that despite the fact that each of these claims is intended to protect particularistic ethnic identities, the very way that this is accomplished is through what Alexander and Smelser (1999: 15) refer to as “civil-society discourse.” In other words, multicultural claims-making can be seen as simultaneously advocacy on behalf of ethnic identities and solidarities and a performance that affirms ones identity and voice as a citizen of a democratic polity. As such, there is no inherent or necessary conflict between ethnic identity and national identity.

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This is more evident in the final type—inclusion—which calls for an expansion of boundaries as a means of overcoming marginalization and stigmatization. Two subtypes of claims in support of inclusion can be distinguished. The first constitutes the least controversial case made for multiculturalism, and it is made with the language of reaching out or appealing to rather than demanding, generally appealing to the public at large rather than to the state. These claims are made on behalf of what Rainer Bauböck (2008: 3) refers to as "celebration multiculturalism" (see Selig 2008 for a related analysis of the "cultural gifts" movement). Members of the mainstream society are called upon to join members of a minority community in celebrating not only their particularities, but the very idea of living in a diverse society. Ethnic and religious festivals are prime examples, which strikes some skeptics as contrived, commercial, or little more than "happy talk" (Hartmann and Bell 2007). The second subtype involves a call to expand the boundaries of solidarity, not by transforming those on the outside to clones of insiders, but by valorizing the diversity that they bring with them. Rather than calling upon outsiders to transform themselves by getting rid of or confining to the private sphere their stigmatized qualities, a reframing of those qualities takes place, and insofar as that happens the circle of solidarity expands. In the process, something happens to the insiders understanding of their own cultural values when such an expansion takes place (for influential recent explorations of ethnic boundaries, see Alba 2005 and Wimmer 2013). An attempt to redefine the religious identity of the nation in the aftermath of World War II sought to redefine the place of its two largest religious minorities: Catholics and Jews. The claim was made that the US was a Judeo-Christian nation, and not simply the “righteous empire” of Protestantism (Marty 1970). To the extent that people embraced this idea, a shift took place from an earlier period when the relationship between the Protestant majority and the two minority faith communities revolved around whether or not the former would exhibit tolerance from its position of privilege. Now it became a matter of whether or not the three faith traditions would be seen as equally valid expressions of religious conviction. For this to happen, two interrelated things had to occur. First, the previously stigmatized qualities of Catholics and Jews had to be seen in a positive light. Their faiths would no longer merely be tolerated, but valorized (Alexander 2006). Second, if these two traditions were to be so embraced, it would mean that the idea of Protestantism as the one true religion no longer held, but instead a more ecumenical sensibility was called for, one that was prepared to accept the prospect of rethinking how people understood their own tradition on the basis of an ongoing inter-religious dialogue. Some, such as sociologists of religion R. Stephen Warner (2010) and Rhys Williams (2011) have suggested that something similar may be developing today, albeit in embryonic form, with efforts by Muslims and their allies from the Judeo-Christian community suggesting a further expansion of the circle of solidarity by depicting Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as part of a shared Abrahamic religious tradition or as religions of the book. Needless to say, in the “age of terror,” this development



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confronts serious challenges, but the earlier enlargement of the nation’s religious identity (which, too, continues to have those prepared to challenge its validity) in a way that relocated Catholicism and Judaism from the periphery to the center and in so doing changed the heretofore hegemonic status of Protestantism, constitutes an empirically-grounded rebuttal of Huntington’s central claim about the persistent hegemony of Anglo-Protestant culture, which, as Richard Alba (2010: 167) observes, “obliterates the contributions of Catholics and Jews to the mainstream cultural core.” Multiculturalism’s critics are numerous, accusing its proponents of undermining national unity by advocating for the balkanization of contemporary social life in which peoples’ identities are shaped solely by their ethnic attachments. Some have gone so far as to suggest that terrorist violence is the inevitable outcome of such a philosophy (Vertovec and Wessendorf 2010). Even world leaders have registered their opinions. David Cameron, Angela Merkel, and Nicholas Sarkozy may not agree on many things, including how to save the eurozone, but they are on the same page when it comes to assessing multiculturalism. They deem it a failure that has produced alienation from national identity and thus has contributed to societal disunity. For their part, proponents have tended to make their case on behalf of multiculturalism by arguments that are either explicitly normative or implicitly infused with normative content, and in fairness to the critics have sometimes given short shrift to considerations of the significance of shared values at the national level. It is with this in mind that viewing multiculturalism as claims-making can help get past the polemics by offering a way of viewing the phenomenon sociologically—taking us beyond competing theoretical perspectives and ideologies. As is evident from some of the examples cited above, what I am calling multiculturalism refers to a phenomenon that claims-makers may or may not have dubbed multiculturalism. They may have called it pluralism, or in some fashion made a case that what they were seeking involved what they understood to be fair terms of integration or, more simply, as an effort to protect something of value from one’s ethnic heritage. Understood in this way, multiculturalism is not a new phenomenon, but rather can be found both in the past and the present—and, indeed, insofar as the Amish seem to factor into many discussions of multiculturalism, it can involve groups that arrived in the US prior to 1880. Immigrant groups are not the only claims-making ethnic groups. Indeed, countries where multiculturalism has become robust, with Canada being the leader in this regard, the drivers have been ethnonationalist groups such as the Quebecois and indigenes such as the First Nations peoples, with immigrants making less far-reaching claims (and, according to some politically-involved philosophers such as Will Kymlicka [1995], appropriately so). While in the US, American Indians are a parallel force to the First Nations peoples in Canada, the nation lacks a significant ethnonational minority. Instead, throughout its history, around 12 percent of its population has been composed of the offspring of slaves, the only non-voluntary migrant group in the nation. I note this because the position of immigrants has been shaped in significant ways by their relationship to

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these other two minority groups that have been far more marginalized, and who, as a consequence, have made more radical or far-reaching demands than immigrants and their offspring, such as demands for land, reparations, and affirmative action programs. Put another way, the inclusion of immigrants, indigenous people, and national minorities is always intertwined, and since so much rides on the actions of the state, the particular dynamics of state/citizen and state/newcomer relations will also be influenced by the regime type of the state in question.

2.2 Diversity and integration in the Nordic social democracies Using Gøsta Esping-Andersen's (1990) well-known model of three different welfare regimes—liberal, corporatist-statist, and social democratic—the Nordic nations today are located very clearly in the social democratic camp. Indeed, they are general viewed as the paradigmatic examples of this particular regime. Borrowing from language introduced in the middle of the past century by T.H. Marshall, social democracy is predicated on the idea of social rights—in addition, of course, to civic and political rights—as universal entitlements accruing to all citizens of the nation. Thus, a range of robust social protections and services have been put in place, including pensions, disability insurance, health care, public education, and so forth. Two features differentiate the social democratic model from the other two. First, its proponents were willing to engage in social engineering in order to insure that the levels of inequality that inevitably arise in capitalist market economies did not rise too high. Thus, social democratic societies valued social equality more highly than other regime-type countries (Kurunmäki 2010; Sørensen and Stråth 1997). Second, the Nordic countries were leaders in promoting gender equality. This included legislation offering what to the rest of the world’s wealthy nations is seen as very generous parental leave plans, coupled with efforts to overcome patterns of gender discrimination in the labor market. Beyond that, there has been a comparable commitment to insure that women and men are equally represented in political office. Despite the incursions of neoliberalism during the past two decades into the social democratic welfare state, there remains a broad consensus that the welfare state is worth preserving (Kivisto and Walhbeck 2013). Suspicious of ideologies of the unfettered capitalist market, citizens of these countries are not drawn to, borrowing the language of Margaret Somers (2008: 211), “romancing the market or reviling the state.” In this connection, Janoski (2010: 188) has made the following relevant observation about the general approach of social democratic nations to diversity, “The major difference between Nordic countries and the rest of Europe is the rise of Social Democratic Party power. The role of left parties is well known in welfare state literature. But left parties have also played a role in more open asylum and naturalization policies, and more intensive integration and multicultural programs.”



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It is within the context of the Nordic social democratic welfare states that the state and civil societies address the cultural and economic challenges confronting minority groups. This includes new manifestations of diversity arising because of the growing number of labor migrants and refugees arriving from a wide array of nations around the world. For Finland, Norway, and Sweden it also involves the indigenous Sámi people. Finally, it involves the persistent marginalization of the Roma who have lived in these countries since the sixteenth century (as opposed to the recently arrived Roma from Eastern Europe). It is within the legal and cultural space created by this type of liberal democratic state that minority groups have and will in the future continue to make claims that are directed to the state, the court of public opinion, or both (Bay, Strömblad, and Bengtsson 2010). The case studies that follow are intended to explore what is transpiring in these nations today. There is no attempt to offer a comprehensive portrait, for to do so would require a considerably longer volume or, to be more precise, volumes. They do, however, offer evidence of the crucial issues surrounding any effort at achieving solidarity while valorizing diversity. Despite the distinctive character of this group of nations predicated on a welfare state system that promotes an egalitarian capitalism instead of an unbridled neoliberal alternative, in many ways what is happening in these nations parallels what happens in other wealthy OECD countries. In part, this may be because there are sufficient shared features of all liberal democracies, regardless of the type of welfare regime that one can expect states to respond to the claims of minority groups in remarkably similar ways. In this regard, I noted that the discussion of claims-making earlier in this chapter was formulated with the United States specifically and the other settler nation, English-speaking democracies more broadly in mind. Nonetheless, it is the assumption here that this template of types of claims is applicable elsewhere—in all other liberal democracies. In these particular cases, it should be further noted that three of the four countries are members of the EU (the exception being Norway), with Finland being the only one that is also part of the Eurozone. It can be said that all four countries—Norway included—are embedded in various ways in the EU project, and with it the attendant collective problems, such as those that have arisen in the wake of the debt crisis in Greece, Portugal, and elsewhere. Peter Kraus' chapter responds to this situation insofar as it represents an effort to place these nations into a larger Western European framework. He does so by exploring the complex character of peoplehood and national sovereignty, and the implications that competing images of peoplehood have on minorities old and new. Bringing the framework down a level to that of the Nordic world itself, Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark offers a comparative analysis of the laws and policies pertaining to minorities in the Nordic countries. In doing so, she points to the tension existing between the egalitarian goals of the respective welfare states, which she contends were formulated with an at least implicit notion of a basically homogeneous population and current calls to respond to the protection of cultural diversity. Or, in other words, the politics

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of redistribution meets the politics of recognition. A parallel chapter insofar as it operates at a Nordic comparative level is that written by Birte Siim, who is concerned with the relationship between multiculturalism and gender equality. As noted above, the commitment to gender equality is a central element in the Nordic welfare regime, and the question that is raised in this chapter is one that feminists elsewhere have raised, namely, as Susan Okin (1999) posed it, "is multiculturalism bad for women?" It is at the same time true that each nation will respond in its own way to these issues based on unique aspects of its history. This need not be seen as path dependence, but rather simply as an indication that the particularities of history and geography do matter. Two chapters in the collection concentrate on local distinctiveness in examining the Roma in both cases and the Sámi in one. Camilla Nordberg's chapter on the Nordic Roma has a primary focus on the Roma in Finland, but in so doing she offers as comparative references discussions of the Roma in both Norway and Sweden. Her study is predicated on the assumption that successful incorporation into the society must address the issue of citizenship. More specifically, it is intent on exploring whether or not the sort of citizenship on offer leaves the Roma existing as second class citizens, rather than as equals in a context where citizenship is conceived in a novel, multicultural way. In interviews with Roma leaders, she offers a sense of the sorts of claims-making coming from spokespersons as well as some of the reactions from the larger society. Reetta Toivanen's complementary chapter is solely concerned with the Finnish case, but she investigates both the Roma and the Sámi. She contends that efforts to articulate policies that will lead to inclusion while preserving diversity are particularly difficult to accomplish in the Finnish context, due in large part to the ways that a consensus culture works against such a goal. Specifically, in the case of the Sámi she stresses that despite the fact that Finland has signed on to various international mandates to protect the cultures and life-worlds of indigenous peoples, the actions on the ground to date have been disappointing, with the result being that the cultural future of the Sámi is in doubt. The Roma, meanwhile, confront similar difficulties, but the situation regarding their culture, particularly their language, is made more complicated by the fact that it is a secret language and thus it may well be that the state can only play a minimal role responding to this specific claim for language preservation. But Toivanen thinks the real issue for the Roma continues to be economic marginalization, and she concludes that despite various policy initiatives, they remain an underclass. Two chapters are concerned with the topic of immigration. Niko Pyrhönen, Karin Creutz, and Marjukka Wiede have undertaken a content analysis of parliamentary debates on immigration legislation and the public discussions before, during, and afterwards, making use of editorials, letters to the editor, and discussion forums appearing under the auspices of the Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s newspaper of record. In part, the legislative actions leading to the passage of the Aliens Act of 2004 was prompted by the necessity of harmonizing national laws with the general



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framework mandated by the EU. A recurring theme, particularly among the public at large, was an expression of concern about the future of national identity, with both explicit and implicit fears raised about the threat immigrants posed to national solidarity. This would seem to be precisely the type of public attitude that contributes to anti-immigrant political posturing, but the authors note that over time—in part due to the role of the media in fostering more tolerant, cosmopolitan attitudes— more accepting views were in evidence while there was a corresponding decline in xenophobia. Whereas this chapter looks at the context of reception, Niklas Wilhelmsson examines the immigrants themselves. He is interested in knowing about their involvements in civil society and in the political system. He appropriately locates his analysis in terms of the larger context in many liberal democracies, wherein some contend that there has been an appreciable decline in civic life by long-time citizens. Using a social capital approach, Wilhelmsson seeks to determine if social networks that immigrants belong to have a positive impact on political and civic engagement. His findings confirm an argument that goes back to the Chicago School of Sociology, which is that involvement in an ethnic community’s voluntary institutions, far from contributing to the isolation of newcomers from the societal mainstream, actually serves as a conduit for entry into that mainstream. If there is one thing that is certain it is that our current state of knowledge concerning the inclusion of minorities in these four countries is limited, and this despite the fact that considerable research has been done in all of them. Moreover, events can quickly upset what might be thought of as trends. The global recession of 2008, which proved to be much deeper than was anticipated, the subsequent threat to the Euro, the growth in influence of various right-wing populist parties, and a level of uncertainty about the future of the EU were not on the table when scholars began to seriously think about these countries as potentially multicultural societies and as nations of immigrants. The rosier prognostications of the turn of the century have given way to growing levels of unease, including unease about what minorities mean for national identity. Things can change very quickly. Thomas Janoski (2010: 218), for example, looking only at one of these nations could write in a very recent book that, “The Finns do not have high immigration to protest against, so there is no need for an anti-immigrant party.” Yet a year after the book appeared in print, the Finnish election on April 17, 2011 resulted in the anti-immigrant and anti-EU True Finns winning 19 percent of the vote, up from a mere 4 percent in the previous election. In terms of the old minorities, the dynamics of minority/majority relations have evolved over an extended period of time, and as the two articles in this collection detail, the picture for both groups is complex, and it is difficult to decide if the glass is half empty or half full. In the case of the Sámi, the first elective assembly was created in Finland 1975 and shortly thereafter in both Norway and Sweden. At both the national and international levels, legislation was passed near the end of the past century that permitted the Sámi language to be used as the official language of

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government in a select number of municipalities. And by 2002 a cross-border Sámi Parliamentary Assembly was in place. However, conflict persists over competing ideas regarding economic development in Lapland, particularly over whether or not to expand extractive industries, which the Sámi quite rightly see as a threat to their livelihoods. Meanwhile, as increasing numbers of young Sámi head to the urban centers in the southern parts of these countries, particularly the capital conurbations of Helsinki, Oslo, and Stockholm, it becomes an open question about whether or not the culture can survive into the future. The Roma face a somewhat different challenge. They constitute an example of what sociologist Georg Simmel (2011 [1908]: 119) called the stranger, which he characterized as the person “who comes today and stays tomorrow,” which is to say that they live among the majority population, but are perceived to be and are thus treated as perpetual outsiders. Negative stereotypes, discrimination, and exclusion are deeply rooted throughout Europe, and though the situation of the Roma in the Nordic countries is without question considerably better than it is in Eastern Europe and many places in Western Europe, nonetheless it cannot be said that the Roma have achieved anything resembling full citizenship. It should also be noted that relatively little research on the internal dynamics and social transformations within the Nordic Roma communities has been done, this lack of knowledge further contributing to viewing them as the stranger. Turning to the matter of refugees, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sweden not only takes in the largest number of refugees compared to its Nordic counterparts, but its refugee population as a percentage of the total national population is the highest. There is one refugee in the country for every 107 Swedes. Norway is closest to Sweden, with a comparable figure of one refugee for every 119 Norwegians. In contrast, there is only one refugee for every 582 Finns and one for every 5,504 Icelanders. Many refugees in these countries constitute what the Canadians refer to as “visible minorities,” people who are racially and/or religiously distinctive. Thus, although their numbers are low, they are often the objects of various types of racist abuse and ostracism. While the largest migrant groups often blend in quite readily, (such as Finns in Sweden and Estonians in Finland), the relatively small number of visible refugees comes to represent in the public’s mind the “immigrant problem.” Labor migration has recently become a topic of considerable concern in policy circles. From the 1970s, Sweden differed from its neighbors insofar as it received substantial numbers of labor migrants. By far the largest component of that migration came from Finland, with over 400,000 Finns finding work, particularly in the construction and manufacturing sectors. When their numbers proved insufficient, Sweden recruited workers from Greece, Italy, and Yugoslavia. The other three countries received only small numbers of labor migrants, with Finland standing out in particular for its low numbers since it remained until the 1990s a nation of emigration



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rather than one of immigration. Immigration flows were primarily humanitarian rather than work-related (Friberg and Eldring 2013). With the two waves of EU expansion eastward, in 2004 and 2007, and with the ability of new EU citizens to move freely in the member states, the number of Eastern Europeans entering the Nordic countries increased. By far the largest sending nation is Poland, but it includes the three Baltic states as well as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The typical Eastern European migrant is a somewhat older male without university training, but often with vocational training. They have found employment in construction, manufacturing, agriculture, and the service sector—these trends being most pronounced in Norway. It is estimated that more than 330,000 Eastern Europeans moved to one or another of the Nordic countries between 2004 and 2011, a figure that rises as high as 600,000 when factoring in temporary workers (Friberg and Eldring 2013; Friberg, Arnholtz, Eldring, Hansen, and Thorains 2014). Given how recently this development has occurred, it is not surprising that policy initiatives are in a somewhat fluid state. The extent to which the Nordic countries will have to rely on migrant labor in the future is an open question. However, there is good reason to assume that the need will increase over time. The birth rates in all of the Nordic countries are below zero population growth (2.1 is the standard figure used for population replacement at existing levels), though in all instances higher than the EU-28 average of 1.58. Denmark currently has the lowest rate of the four nations at 1.73, while Sweden has the highest at 1.91. These rates are not as problematic as they are in several other Western European nations, but there are economic implications that will need to be addressed. Though some quarters of the environmental movement might find a decrease in population salutatory because it would mean less pollution, less of a drain on natural resources, less crowding, and so forth, it would also mean that labor shortages would have to be met by economic constriction. What about policies designed to increase the national birth rate as a way of addressing labor shortages? In instances where such efforts have been undertaken, they have been shaped by a rather unattractive ethnocentric nationalism, often with a heavy dose of racism. And one only has to look eastward to Russia to be reminded that such efforts have seldom if ever been successful. Reduced birth rates in the world’s wealthy nations have become by now a well-established pattern, and it is not likely to change anytime soon. Pragmatic policy makers, for good reason, are concentrating on the idea of increasing immigration levels in at least a modest way as a means of addressing existing and impending labor shortages. And in this regard, though opposition to increasing levels of immigration has increased since 2008, in general the Nordic publics are more open to the idea that immigration is necessary than is true in a number of other Western European nations. Though the success of right-wing populism is sometimes linked to fears about economic competition for scarce jobs between the native-born and immigrants, in fact recent research findings reveal that

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cultural fears about national identity are a far more salient contributing factor to antiimmigrant sentiment and support for right-wing parties (Lucassen and Lubbers 2012). This is the context in which the politics of multiculturalism plays out. Although the metrics used to determine the levels of commitment to multiculturalism vary, the virtue of Banting and Kymlicka’s MPI is that it provides measures for policies regarding immigrants, indigenous peoples, and national minorities. For immigrants, 8 policies are considered. Sweden ranks highest among this quartet with 7 out of 8 policies in place, followed closely by Finland with 6. At the other end of the spectrum, Norway only has 3.5 and Denmark’ score, reflecting the impact of the anti-immigration platform of the People’s Party, is 0. On the other hand, in terms of indigenous people, of the 9 policies that make up this category, Denmark ranks highest, with 7 out of 9. Norway is second with 5 of 9, followed by Finland with a score of 4, and Sweden is at the bottom with a score of 3. In the case of national minorities, only Finland, with its Swedish-language minority, is represented. With a potential score of 6— which is earned by Canada, Spain, and the United Kingdom—Finland’s score is 4.5. How exactly these results ought to be interpreted is open to debate. The case studies contained in the following chapters can assist in that interpretive task.

References Alba, R. 2010. “Connecting the Dots between Boundary Change and Large-Scale Assimilation with Zolbergian Clues.” Social Research, 77(1): 163-180. __________. 2005. “Bright vs. Blurred Boundaries: Second Generation Assimilation and Exclusion in France, Germany, and the United States. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28(1): 20-49. Alexander, J C. 2006. The Civil Sphere. New York: Oxford University Press. __________. 2013. “Struggling over the Mode of Incorporation: Backlash against Multiculturalism in Europe.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(4): 531-556. Alexander, J. C. and N. J. Smelser. 1999. “Introduction: The Ideological Discourse of Cultural Discontent.” Pp. 3-18 in Neil J. Smelser and Jeffrey C. Alexander, eds., Diversity and Its Discontents: Cultural Conflict and Common Ground in Contemporary American Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Banting, K. and W. Kymlicka. 2012. “Is There Really a Backlash against Multiculturalism Policies? New Evidence from the Multiculturalism Policy Index.” Universitat Pompeu Fabra GRITIM Working Paper Series, Number 14, Autumn. Bauböck, R. 2008. “Beyond Culturalism and Statism: Liberal Responses to Diversity.” Eurosphere Working Paper Series, Online Working Paper No. 06. Retrieved from http://eurosphere.uib.no/ knowledgebase/workingpapers.htm. Bay, A-H., P. Strömblad, and B. Bengtsson. 2010. “An Introduction to Diversity, Inclusion and Citizenship in Scandinavia.” Pp. 1-16 in Bo Bengtsson, Per Strömblad, and Ann-Helén Bay, eds., Diversity, Inclusion and Citizenship in Scandinavia. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Brubaker, R. 2010. “Ethnicity in Post-Cold War Europe, East and West.” Pp. 44-62 in Roland Hsu, ed., Ethnic Europe: Mobility, Identity, and Conflict in a Globalized World. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

References 

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Brunkhorst, H. 2005. Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Caldwell, C. 2009. Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West. New York: Doubleday. Daniels, R. 1990. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. New York: HarperCollins. Dawson, M. 1994. Behind the Mule: Class, Race, and African American Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Friberg, J. H. and L. Eldring, eds. 2013. Labor Migrants from Central and Eastern Europe in the Nordic Countries: Patterns of Migration, Working Conditions, and Recruitment Practices. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers. Friberg, J. H., J. Arnholtz, L. Eldring, N. W. Hansen, and F. Thorains. 2014. “Nordic Labour Market Institutions and New Migrant Workers: Polish Migrants in Oslo, Copenhagen, and Reykjavik.” European Journal of Industrial Relations, 20(1): 37-53. Hartmann, D. and J. Bell. 2007. “Diversity in Everyday Discourse: The Cultural Ambiguities and Consequences of ’Happy Talk’.” American Sociological Review, 72(6): 895-914. Hollinger, D. 2006. “From Identity to Solidarity.” Daedalus Fall: 23-31. Huntington, S. P. 2004. Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity. New York: Simon and Schuster. Janoski, T. 2010. The Ironies of Citizenship: Naturalization and Integration in Industrialized Countries. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kivisto, P. 2012. “We Really Are All Multiculturalists Now.” The Sociological Quarterly, 53(1): 1-24. Kivisto, P. and Ö. Wahlbeck. 2013. “Reflections on the Future of Multicultural Inclusion in the Nordic Countries.” Pp. 325-339 in Peter Kivisto and Östen Wahlbeck, eds., Debating Multiculturalism in the Nordic Welfare States. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Koopmans, R. and P. Statham. 1999. “Challenging the Liberal Nation-State? Postnationalism, Multiculturalism, and the Collective Claims of Migrants and Ethnic Minorities in Britain and Germany. American Journal of Sociology 105(3): 652-696. Kurunmäki, J. 2010. “Nordic Democracy in 1935: On the Finnish and Swedish Rhetoric of Democracy.” Pp. 37-82 in Jussi Kurunmäki and Johan Strang, eds., Rhetorics of Nordic Democracy. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society. Kymlicka, W. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship. New York: Oxford University Press. Luccasen, G. and M. Lubbers. 2012. “Who Fears What? Explaining Far-Right- Wing Preference in Europe by Distinguishing Perceived Cultural and Economic Ethnic Threats.” Comparative Political Studies, 45(5): 547-574. Marty, M. 1970. Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America. New York: Dial Press. Multiculturalism Policy Index. 2012. http://www.queensu.ca/mcp/. Accessed February 23, 2012. Nussbaum, M. C. 2012. The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Okin, S. M, ed., 1999. Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sciortino, G. 2003. “From Heterogeneity to Difference? Comparing Multiculturalism as a Description and a Field for Claims-Making.” Comparative Social Research 22: 263-285. Selig, D. 2008. Americans All: The Cultural Gifts Movement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Simmel, G. 2011 [1908], “The Stranger.” Pp. 119-122 in Peter Kivisto, ed., Social Theory: Roots and Branches. New York: Oxford University Press. Somers, M. 2008. Genealogies of Citizenship: Market, Statelessness, and the Right to Have Rights. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Sørensen, O. and B. Stråth, eds. 1997. The Cultural Construction of Norden. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. Taylor, C. 1998. “The Dynamics of Democratic Exclusion.” Journal of Democracy 9(4): 143-156. Vertovec, S. and S. Wessendorf, eds. 2010. The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies, and Practices. London: Routledge. Warner, R. S. 2010. “Race and Religion in the American Republic.” Lecture presented at the Center for the Study of Pluralism and the Civil Sphere, Augustana College, Rock Island, IL, May 12. Williams, R. 2011. “Creating an American Islam: Thoughts on Religion, Identity, and Place.” Sociology of Religion 72(2): 127-153. Wimmer, A. 2013. Ethnic Boundary Making: Institutions, Power, Networks. New York: Oxford University Press. Young, I. M. 2011. Responsibility for Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.

PART II: Case Studies from the Nordic Nations

Peter A. Kraus

3 Democracy’s Challenge: Nordic Minority Politics in the European Context 3.1 Democracy, the people and the paradox of sovereignty ‘The people’ is a ubiquitous category both in modern constitutionalism and in the rhetoric of democratic politics. When it comes to defining what democracy is in a nutshell, the formula of ‘government by the people’ is recurrently used. At first sight, this sounds reasonable enough: In a polity that is supposed to meet democratic standards, the subjects of rule must also have a decisive voice in the process of ruling. Yet the apparent common sense may well hide one of the most intractable problems of democratic theory and practice, as Robert Dahl (1989: 116) would put it. The problem concerns the very identity of ‘the people’: Which are the specific features a given collectivity of persons must have to be able to claim that they constitute a people? If the people are supposed to be the ultimate source of democratic legitimacy, who can legitimately establish who the people are? By raising these questions we approach one of the big ‘black hole’ areas of political sociology and political science. Modern theories of democracy implicitly assume that ‘a people’ exists. In the language of modern constitutions, the assumption typically becomes a programmatic declaration. But what are the social and political realities underneath the constitutional claims of ‘government by the people’? I suspect that much of the concern many scholars and public intellectuals express when they are confronted with issues of identity politics may be caused by the uncomfortable feeling of getting close to the ‘black hole’. An argument that can frequently be heard in this context is that instead of looking at our navels and discussing who we are we should rather focus on ‘proper problems’, i.e. problems that relate to the allocation of scarce resources. In contrast with this view, I will hold that defending an interest presupposes identity. After all, one of the main lessons to be drawn from the debate on multiculturalism and democracy of the last decades – a debate that seems far from being closed yet – is that democratic politics involves, by definition, identity politics. To ignore this would simply imply to keep one of the core domains of democratic rule insulated against the very logic of democracy. Here, the point not only lies in acknowledging the importance of input-oriented mechanisms of legitimation for democratic decision-making, as most political scientists would do. Input legitimation (Scharpf 1999: 6) is based on strong collective ties between the members of a community. These ties translate into a general consent which makes the outcome of an open political process acceptable to all community members. What identity politics now typically puts to the test are the very foundations of democratic input. For in many cases, raising identity issues means to question the legitimacy © 2015 Peter A. Kraus This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.



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of the established ‘self’ that underlies the exercise of democratic self-determination. In more general terms, examining the link between identity and self-determination forces us to take on a theme that, despite its high relevance, has for a long time been neglected by mainstream social science, namely the study of the making, reproducing and transforming of political peoplehood (Smith 2003: 10).1 Jacobinism has obviously had a major impact on the modern political imagery when it comes to the notion of people-making. On the one hand, Jacobinism can be understood as the main ideological force sustaining the French Revolution and the republican legacy. In this regard, its principal characteristic is the implantation of a political culture of generality, where generality stands for the representation of the general will by public authorities in a way that creates an immediate link between the identity of the citizens and the ‘grand national whole’ epitomized by the state (Rosanvallon 2004: 13). On the other hand, the Jacobin phenomenon can be associated with the political dynamics of modernity in a broader sense, which makes the French experience comparable to other cases: From the angle adopted by Eisenstadt (1999: 72), Jacobinism is seen as a ‘fundamentalism of modernity’. Accordingly, the main dividing line in modern politics would run between those who follow Jacobin orientations (be it with reactionary or with progressive intentions) and those attached to pluralist conceptions. From both perspectives, the tension between generality and particularity constitutes one of the central antinomies of modern democracy. Thus, what is at stake in the realm of identity politics ultimately is the very definition of what – or who – underlies the ‘generality’ that is to be democratically represented. Which identities can legitimately claim to be more general – and thereby democratic – than others? Who is who in democratic politics? One can reasonably hold that the influence of Jacobinism on modern political thinking, which is still graspable today, when, for example, the virtues of ‘thick’ civic unity are praised against the dangers of multicultural fragmentation, is closely connected to the quasi mythical status that the French Revolution attained in the history of democracy and democratization. However, if we look at things more systematically, we may also assume that Jacobin views of democracy owe much of their enduring prominence to the possibility they offer for evading the ‘black hole’ which may emerge once we want to determine the identity of the people. In other words, the Jacobin approach offers an escape from the problems associated with what political theorists have called the ‘paradox of sovereignty’ or ‘Rousseau’s paradox’. What is the paradox about? The concept of democratic sovereignty presupposes that there is a collective identity sustaining the polity which is conceived of as sovereign. Such an identity,

1 There is a huge body of work on nationalism. Yet political peoplehood does not necessarily require a national form, although in historical reality the making of peoples frequently overlapped with nation-building.

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 Democracy’s Challenge: Nordic Minority Politics in the European Context

however, can itself hardly be conceived of as an outcome of democratic decisionmaking. Democratic political structures do not emerge out of a historical vacuum, and the tribute we have to pay to history simply is that there is no democracy before democracy. To paraphrase the compelling observation made by Ivor Jennings (1956: 56), government by the people can only take place after somebody has decided who the people are. The roots of popular sovereignty are inextricably connected with a past which is pre-democratic, so that the people – the demos – appear on the political scene without genuine democratic credentials. Thus, as Rousseau pointed out, those who want to establish a democratic polity ultimately have to rely on resources which themselves lack democratic legitimacy.2 Processes of establishing democratic rule have always involved inheriting a legacy made of asymmetries in the distribution of power. This legacy can only be tackled after democratic procedures have been introduced. In the moment of constituting a sovereign collective will, the people are on political grounds which are external to democracy. Now the Jacobin way of dealing with this situation and of circumventing the paradox of sovereignty has been to conflate the identity of the people with the identity of the state, constructing the ‘grand national whole’ Rosanvallon refers to in the French case. To cut a long and complex story short, the Jacobin approach consists in assuming that democratic sovereignty is ultimately embodied in the nation-state. The state represents an indivisible source of sovereignty, which is built on the uniform collective identity of the citizens. The paradox of sovereignty thereby disappears to the extent that the Jacobin understanding of democracy converges with monist views of state power and citizenship: The nation-state becomes the ultimate source of political authority and the guarantor of uniform citizens’ rights within a discrete territory, while state-based patterns of identification constitute the fabric of legitimate political rule. Against this background, one can indeed argue that the French model of linking peoplehood and statehood served well into the twentieth century as the standard pattern for envisaging political integration under conditions of modernity (Kymlicka 2007: 42). The idea of national sovereignty made for a strong and unique bond between ‘the’ people and ‘their’ state. Nonetheless, the fusion of Jacobin and monist principles never remained uncontested, not even in France. On the one hand, the specific way peoples are to be linked to states, so that criteria of democracy and justice are sufficiently met, has been a persistent matter of intense political conflicts. Since the French Revolution, the problems that derive from the paradox of sovereignty have been reverberating in still ongoing controversies on how the collectivities entitled to self-determination should be appropriately defined and redefined. Symptomatically,

2 The assessment can be found in Book II of The Social Contract (Section 7, ‘The Legislator’). The paradox may seem even more paradoxical if we take into account that it was laid out by a philosopher who was bound to become a major source of inspiration for the Jacobins.



Democracy, the people and the paradox of sovereignty 

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up to now the quest for democracy can be associated with a continuous proliferation of potentially and factually eligible ‘selves’. In the context of political development in Europe, it seems no coincidence that historical moments standing for a push towards democracy paved the way for the break-up of old, and the founding of new states. The wave of democratization at the end of World War I led to a significant increase of the number of European states. While one could count 28 of them around 1920, the figure had gone up to 39 around 1990, after the collapse of communism in the East. The more democracy, the higher the number of collective subjects who claim to have a right to self-determination, one may conclude. On the other hand, the basis of democratic sovereignty in a given political unit can be interpreted in pluralist ways, fostering the dispersion of power among groups and territories. However, the imagery of the one and indivisible generality encapsulated within clear-cut borders remains quite powerful, as becomes evident if we look at political maps of the world, whose single components, each with its specific colour, are ultimately meant to represent the blending of peoplehood and statehood in an environment of ‘United Nations’. The power visualized on these maps does not only have a symbolic character, but largely reflects the unequal access to resources used for defining collective identities in the politics of people-making. The dynamics of constructing the peoples who are to secure their claim on the political map thereby implies multiple forms of hegemonic categorization, as well as multiple attempts at overcoming its effects by articulating alternative identities. The political architecture of the people as the ‘grand national whole’ must rely on considerable institutional capacities to name collectivities, interpret histories and standardize languages. Power is required to strengthen the role of some collectivity, privilege its history and standardize its language at the expense of others. The application of the logic of Jacobinism to political integration entailed that the other was assimilated into the one and indivisible people under unequal terms. Thus, in the republican order established by Ataturk after the end of Ottoman rule, Kurds officially ceased to exist and were considered ‘mountain Turks’. Following the same kind of pattern seven decades later, the constitution of post-communist Bulgaria banned ethnic and confessional parties, trying to put a political veil on the presence of a substantial portion of Turks among its population. So there were officially no Kurds in Turkey, as there should officially be no Turks in Bulgaria, to make sure that the picture of the one uniform people is not threatened by those who it does not represent. In more extreme cases, the attempts at imposing a hegemonic pattern of peoplehood against diverse identities entailed the massive use of physical violence and led to the expulsion or even elimination of entire segments of a state’s original population. To depict the history of high modernity as a history of ethnic cleansing can therefore hardly be regarded as an exaggeration. That democracy has not always been a reliable safeguard against the prosecution of minorities in the name of the titular nations of modernizing states (Mann 2005) makes for a somewhat uncomfortable conclusion.

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 Democracy’s Challenge: Nordic Minority Politics in the European Context

Yet, it can't be denied that the fusion of national and democratic principles that both old and new states were eager to accomplish created a recurrent threat to the survival of minorities. The consolidation of nation-state sovereignty often led to the oppression of minorities for the sake of hegemonic integration. From the perspective of Europe's minorities, the legacy of the twentieth century is appalling. Even where state constitutions were supposed to guarantee minority protection, there was little official commitment to effectively implement the rights of minorities. In many cases, the de facto norm was anyway not to protect, but to get rid of minority groups, be it by assimilating them or by prompting their exodus. Accordingly, minorities can be seen both as the key witnesses and as the principal victims of the problematic character of the hegemonic link between democratic sovereignty and nation-state construction. As has been argued thus far, this is especially relevant if we wish to understand the manifold grievances members of ‘old’ minorities raise vis-à-vis the majority state. The labelling of groups such as the South Tyrolese, the Sámi or the Catalans as ‘old’ follows the intention of emphasizing their long and continuous presence in the areas they inhabit. Frequently, the groups in question were incorporated into the majority territory without their consent, and on that basis they often have a long historical record of struggles for attaining a sovereign or semi-sovereign status on their own grounds. Minority activism has certainly contributed to the erosion of the Jacobin paradigm of integration, which seems to have lost much of its former normative appeal all over Europe, as successive agreements on securing minority rights at the international level indicate. If we look at recent tendencies in international law and politics, what used to be the ‘French model’ nowadays rather looks like the ‘French exception’. Nevertheless, we should be cautious before announcing the decline of the once hegemonic approach to people-making. While we may have witnessed some progress regarding the situation of minority groups of ‘endogenous’ origin in Western democracies, it is more difficult to make a general assessment concerning ‘new’ minorities, that is minorities constituted by groups with an immigrant background, who at present make for a substantial portion of Europe’s population. Concerning their status, it may be too hasty a move to maintain that there has been a general retreat from multiculturalism and a return to assimilation as the dominant approach in the liberal democracies of the West, as some observers have done (Brubaker 2003). However, over the last few years several Western European countries have indeed emphasized their intention to uphold wellestablished majority identities before the cultural changes brought by immigration. Thus, admission to citizenship is made contingent upon passing tests which ultimately scrutinize the affinities an applicant has developed towards what one might call the host society’s ‘official image’. The controversies stirred by such measures are not caused because of their declared intention to foster the dynamics of civic integration in contexts marked by an increasing cultural heterogeneity, but by the re-affirmation of hegemonic patterns of people-making they apparently intend.



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3.2 The challenge of minorities The concept of minority typically refers to groups who find themselves in a position of relative subordination in a given societal context, as they lack the structural capacity for generalizing key features of their group identity with regard to the dominant group. Sheer numerical inferiority may be the main reason for such a situation, but numbers tend to connect to other factors in manifold ways. At the same time, these other factors point to a cultural profile, based on ethnicity, religion or language, which is distinctive of the minority. Hence, in contrast to political minority options, which can potentially be adopted by an ever growing number of people and ultimately become majoritarian, attachments to a particular cultural identity tend to be of a more sticky kind, and less susceptible to deliberate choices. While all kinds of human civilization seem to have produced their minorities, the minority status gains particular salience with the formation of modern nation-states. This is so because of the great weight a shared cultural identity attains for political integration in the age of nationalism (Gellner 1997). By setting the standards that defined the identity of its citizens, the modern state tended to discard those identity patterns that were peripheral or even undesirable to the officialized self-understanding of the nation: Minorities are the product of institutional cultural politics. As I have argued previously, the logic of minority conflicts is inherent to the architecture of the nation-state. However, the conflicts and their outcome still reflect the contingency of politics. Accordingly, one must keep in mind that ‘minority’ and ‘majority’ are relational categories. The parameters characterizing this relation reflect the use of power, as well as the unequal access to power resources that different actors have (Kraus 1996: 370). How minorities interact with dominant groups, and how their position worsens or improves in this interaction, depends on political contexts which are subject to change. Notwithstanding the importance of contextual factors, there are a few general aspects that we may take into account to attain a better understanding of majorityminority relations. One first aspect has already been mentioned: It is the distinction between ‘old’ and ‘new’ minorities. Old minorities are often also categorized as national minorities, in contrast with the ethnic minorities formed by immigrant groups (Kymlicka 1995: 11–15). In many respects, the central implication of drawing this distinction is to assign the claims of the respective type of minority a different normative status. National minorities want to maintain their specific group identity within a historical homeland, which they see as the basis for articulating claims for autonomy and justifying the objective of setting up solid institutional structures conducive to their collective empowerment. Ethnic minorities obviously lack such a homeland in the host country. In general, their claims do not primarily focus on preserving or re-establishing a particular institutional status, but rather aim at achieving their incorporation in the receiving society under conditions of equality. The second aspect overlaps to some extent with the first one, as national minorities are in most cases territorially concentrated minorities. Territorial concentration works

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in favour of minority mobilization and makes it easier to introduce provisions that give minorities extensive rights to self-government. On the other hand, it also has to be noted that disposing of an ‘own’ territory is a crucial asset for collectivities who want to accentuate their potential for institutional completeness before the majority state, thereby moving from autonomy towards independence. It is this constellation which can dramatically exacerbate the implications of the paradox of sovereignty by leading to a conflict over a minority’s right to secede. A third aspect which may play a role in structuring the frame of ethno-national politics is whether a minority can rely on some type of external protection (Offe 1994: 145). This is especially relevant in those cases where the protection comes from a neighbouring state that identifies ethnic kin-groups abroad as part of a larger national community, thereby fuelling conflicts over the legitimacy of territorial settlements in ethno-nationally mixed areas. The intertwining of intra-state and inter-state conflict dimensions may further complicate dealing with minority issues, as sovereignty has to be negotiated both between groups and between states. For a long time, and up to the present, dealing with the national question in Eastern Europe has been marked by this syndrome. External protection, territoriality and nationality are variables delineating potentials that minority groups may use for their mobilization. Assessing such potentials will possibly help us to get a better understanding of the relatively strong position a group such as the already mentioned South Tyrolese has for putting forward its demands if we compare it to, say, members of the Kurdish diaspora spread across Western Europe. In one case, we have the typical example of a national minority concentrated in a borderland area. The support it received from the Austrian side after World War II was clearly functional for achieving ample autonomy rights vis-à-vis the Italian state. In the other case, the resources for exerting strong political pressure are basically lacking: Thus, activists trying to mobilize for the Kurdish cause in German cities, for example, do not receive any institutional support from the side of Turkey, where the bulk of Kurdish immigration to Germany stems from. As the Kurds in Germany lack political control over a homeland ‘of their own', German authorities are generally reluctant to classify them as an independent ethnic group, let alone to recognize them as a nationality. However, to what extent potentials are activated follows no automatic logic, but is, again, a question of political contingency, as is exemplified by the case of the Swedish speaking Finns, who may well be considered a ‘strong' minority, although — if we leave aside the case of Åland — they lack both external protection and a clear-cut territorial basis. Neither have they been assigned nationality status. Hence, an assessment of the impact of ‘objective' resource potentials will not render an analysis of the deeper context of minority politics superfluous. It is this very context that we need to look at if we want to grasp the manifold ways power frames majority-minority relations. Still, regardless of the ultimately crucial significance of contextual factors, there are two major challenges of a general character involved in any attempt at tackling minority



The challenge of minorities 

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issues under democratic conditions. They are intrinsically connected to our point of departure, namely the ‘black hole' in which sovereignty has to be constituted. Hence, both challenges relate to the problem of giving a satisfactory answer to the question of who the (legitimate) people are, although the question has to be confronted from different perspectives in each case. The first challenge refers to the threat minority demands may represent for holding together nation-states as the key units for collective decision-making in the modern world. It can be called an ‘external’ challenge, since it results from the lack of legitimacy minorities attribute to the majority state for dealing with their affairs. As I have argued, most states have tried to prevent having to take up this challenge by striving for the cultural homogenization of their population, turning it into one people. From a present-day perspective, it seems out of question that the normative cost of linking the goal of democratic integration to assimilationist policies is excessively high, and that majority states have the obligation to respect the identity of minority cultures. It must also be acknowledged, however, that the problems the paradox of sovereignty bears when it comes to constituting a legitimate type of demos will hardly be addressed in appropriate ways by advocating an endless multiplication of minority-controlled political units. To put it in more figurative terms: We will not evade the darkness of the one black hole of sovereignty by simply creating a great many black holes. Thus, the external challenge ultimately begs the question of how to define a proper balance between unity and diversity. As has been argued here, neither negation nor homogenization is a justifiable response to diversity. Diversity requires accommodation. At the same time, accommodation will be difficult to achieve if the foundations of a common polity are persistently and vehemently questioned by minority groups. It also has to be said, though, that majorities are often inclined to conceive of accommodation as a one-sided exercise. The ‘other’ represented by the minority is then only recognized as some kind of appendix to the still dominant ‘grand national whole’. Otherness is only tolerated as long as it can be kept outside the core areas of sovereignty, so that being a minority ultimately remains linked to a status of subordination, be it only in the literal sense of remaining exposed to the categorical authority of a superior unit. Accordingly, the standard approach to dealing with minority issues adopted in institutional contexts determined by nation-state prerogatives is based on a politics of unequal recognition, which assigns minorities a ‘special status’, while it takes the majority identity for granted. The second challenge concerns the way minorities represent and articulate themselves. In this sense, we might speak of an ‘internal’ challenge, which points at the very foundations of minority identities. The paradoxical character of the political dynamics of people-making becomes patent here as well, as the institutionalization of a minority identity often entails an ‘isomorphic’ reproduction of hegemonic standards. The spaces which are opened to enable minorities to develop a counterhegemonic discourse and challenge patterns of domination remain thereby subject to the very logic they supposedly question. At any rate, this is a criticism that minorities

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in control of autonomous institutional realms are often exposed to: While pretending to defy the dominant group’s power of categorization, they would apply all too rigid categorization strategies when determining their own ‘self’. In a similar vein, minority institutions – political bodies, educational organs, cultural academies or minority-run media – are often portrayed in parodist ways, as if they were obsessively devoted to reproducing the dominant patterns of identity attribution on a minor scale. In consequence, minorities are often accused of being unable to transcend the essentialist politics they once had been themselves victims of. Minority groups are thus confronted with an expectation that representatives of dominant cultures rarely had to care about: to articulate their identities in a reflective and non-essentialist way.3 It is certainly justified to judge contemporary identity politics by other normative standards than those that were in place during the high time of nationalism. Yet, by doing so, one should also be careful not to incur in an unequal blaming, which is only the reverse side of unequal recognition. The practices of categorization we may find problematic in minority discourses respond to imperatives that continue occupying a central place in the language of modern politics and thereby push those involved in minority politics towards conceiving of identities as having an essential quality. Ultimately, the ‘nationalizing’ and ‘essentializing’ elements detectable in the mobilization rhetoric of an indigenous minority such as the Sámi must not be disconnected from the massive impact of Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Russian state policies when it comes to setting the terms of discursive exchange in majorityminority relations in Europe’s far North. Both the external and the internal challenge are inherent features of minority politics and have to be tackled in some form by disentangling the puzzles of sovereignty and disaggregating ‘the’ people into different yet complementary collectivities. Let me stress once again, however, how critically significant contextual factors are for getting an appropriate understanding of what is at stake in any specific minority mobilization. Only the sound analysis of context will allow us to grasp whether the identity claims of ethnic groups and nationalities work against or reinforce the hegemonic logic in the politics of people-making.

3.3 Minority politics in the Nordic context Nordic countries are frequently described as being remarkably homogeneous by comparative European standards. This homogeneity is generally understood as an absence of pronounced cultural or religious differentiation. From such an angle, cultural homogeneity is considered a key background element for understanding the

3 The critique of the essentializing view has been of central concern in the debate on the formation of social and cultural identities triggered by post-structuralism; see, for instance, Kristeva 1991.



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situation of minority groups in Northern Europe (Allardt 1981). In addition, the high level of cultural homogeneity would explain the low intensity of ethnic conflicts in contrast with other areas of Europe in the age of nationalism. Moreover, cultural homogeneity can be interpreted as a factor which fostered the development of strong and wide-ranging welfare state structures in the Scandinavian region. Such a view is based on the observation that ethno-linguistic differentiation tends to have negative effects on the level of organisation of labour in a country. Low levels of labour organization in turn, tend to be negatively correlated with the volume of social spending (Stephens 1979). Against this background, the controversial assumption that cultural diversity is bad for social equality has been voiced in an upcoming and intensifying debate on the relationship between multiculturalism policies and the welfare state.4 The concept of homogeneity – of a historically entrenched homogeneity, one might want to add – seems to be a good starting point for assessing minority politics and the impact of immigration on established identities in the North. In this respect, I think that there are two aspects that are highly relevant for a critical reflection on the dominant approach to minority issues in the area. In the first place, we should be careful not to take homogeneity as something given, as the self-evident basis for the processes of social and political integration that sustained the blending of peoplehood in statehood in countries such as Sweden or Finland. We can certainly accept the argument that the early amalgamation of religious and political power structures brought about by the establishment of state churches made for a less arduous path to nation-building in the North than in the Continent’s South, marked by a long-lasting division of religious and secular authorities (Rokkan 1999). However, such an argument does not necessarily imply that Nordic diversity patterns smoothly dissolved in the process of nation-state construction. To use the powerful image of the folkhem, coined by Sweden’s Social Democrats: We should not assume that the people to be given their home were in the political picture from the beginning, happily waiting to get what they deserved as good citizens. Rather, these very people have to be conceived of to a substantial extent as a collectivity tailored by state institutions. Accordingly, what we perceive today as a strikingly high level of homogeneity would have to be seen as the product of a successful homogenization. To be sure, the historical rationale of homogenization varies from case to case. In Sweden, it may be linked to deliberate attempts by reformist state elites to create a thick bond between the citizens and ‘their’ polity, in a way that has some resemblance with the patterns of the French republican model. In Finland, it may rather be related to a particular combination of internal and external pressures in the political context of a young state in which social and political structures of a Nordic type overlapped

4 The volume edited by Banting and Kymlicka (2006) contains a first critical assessment of this debate.

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with an East European path to national revival (Alapuro 1988). I am clearly not pretending to offer any conclusive view of the dynamics of people-making in the North here. Nor is it my intention to replace the story of the folkhem with a narrative that focuses exclusively on the homogenizing thrust of integration. I simply want to emphasize that homogeneity should not be taken for granted as a historical given, but be related to shifting political constellations that make it more or less effective. One could look at the city of Helsinki, for instance, that some 100 years ago was a much more diverse place, characterized by minority experiences and intercultural exchanges of multiple kinds, than it is today. The second aspect I would like to bring into focus when sketching out an approach to minority politics in the North is the thorny relationship between equality and homogeneity. The Nordic welfare state tradition has created robust links between national identity and social citizenship, links that found a compact expression in the Swedish concept of folkhemmet. Now, the key question in the context of our discussion here is to what extent the construction of the people’s home went hand in hand with the tendency to conceive of social equality in terms of cultural homogeneity. At the core of the idea of social citizenship is the notion that a minimum of protection and well-being is required to guarantee individual autonomy and enable men and women to make meaningful use of their civil and political rights. Since the comparative analysis of welfare regimes presented by Esping-Andersen (1990), it has become all but a commonplace in the social sciences that universalism is one of the most characteristic features of welfare policies in Scandinavia. At its most elementary level, this universalism implies that basic social entitlements have to be guaranteed to all citizens regardless of their status or class. I have certainly no intention to question this noble perspective and the emphasis it places on the egalitarian dimension of citizenship. What we perhaps have to scrutinize more thoroughly, however, are the patterns of collective identity underneath the claims for universalism of the folkhem: Which kind of who is constitutive of the Scandinavian welfare universe? The Nordic welfare architecture is based on a strong commitment to achieving the social inclusion of all citizens. Such a commitment may involve a relatively hesitant public attitude towards admitting newcomers, as welfare states are still nation-states and as the universal entitlements they guarantee are controlled by national authorities, and meant to benefit nationals in the first place. For this reason, Jytte Klausen (1995: 246) takes a sceptical stance towards the ethos of universalism that is supposed to sustain social citizenship in Scandinavia: ‘It can in fact be argued that the Scandinavian welfare states are as much examples of closure and exclusion as they are examples of welfare state inclusion. Which feature predominates depends upon one’s vantage point, particularly whether one is a citizen or an alien.’ Klausen opens up an interesting angle of analysis, which deserves further elaboration. In this context, my assumption is that the limitation of universalism to those inside the folkhem may only be one part of the story, an important one,



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to be sure. However, what seems even more relevant for the argumentation I have been sketching out on these pages is the possible trade-off between inclusion in the people’s home and the recognition of diversity. To what extent have universalist intentions been conflated with homogenizing practices? This is obviously a topic of crucial concern whenever we talk about minority politics. What ultimately is at stake in tackling it is whether cultural assimilation is the price we have to be prepared to pay to avoid social exclusion. For decades, the rhetoric of inclusion has been used to force indigenous peoples and minority groups to acquire a cognitive repertoire that conformed to the majority identity. Accordingly, the degree of inclusion of a citizen of Sámi or Roma origin in, say, Swedish society largely depended on his or her disposition to leave behind his or her culture of origin and become part of the presumedly universal community of industrial workers, small farmers and civil servants represented by the welfare state. In a similar way, the predominant approach to (political and social) citizenship — kansalaisuus – in Finland appears to be inextricably intermingled with an understanding of nationality – kansallisuus – with thick cultural connotations that makes it difficult to accept immigrants as equal as long as they remain different (Lepola 2000). Yet, if democratic citizenship is about equality as a means to empowerment and freedom, be it at the individual or at the collective level, there is no justifiable reason to interpret the concept of social inclusion in assimilationist terms. Thus, the many positive attributes that the nation-state has attained in the North as a guarantor of social cohesion might appear in a somewhat darker light due to a long-running tendency to conflate inclusion and assimilation. In Northern Europe, the civic republicanism of the French model was apparently enriched with important social elements, but this did not imply a rupture with the Jacobin approach to integration. Simplifying things, we could say that in the North the black hole of sovereignty was filled with the discourse on social welfare, but that addressing the paradox of sovereignty in this way did not substantially improve the fate of minorities exposed to the hegemonic logic of nation-state construction. Let me end with an observation that brings together the two aspects which I have highlighted for the purpose of contextualizing minority politics and ethnic relations in the Nordic countries. The central role played by nation-state institutions in the field of securing social cohesion becomes patent even in those spaces that have successively been opened up during the last decades to recognize the existence of diverse identities under a common political roof. On the one hand, provisions that shall give different minority groups varying degrees of cultural autonomy are typically introduced and implemented following a top-down approach. The legitimacy that Sámi identity claims may have in Finland, to mention one concrete example, seems to depend by and large on how these claims adjust to the operation rules of Finnish public authorities. In a similar way, when looking at how public boards that shall promote the effective integration of immigrant groups in their local environments have been established in Nordic democracies, one may wonder

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what the main priority is: Is it the due representation of newcomers, or is it possibly rather the preventive co-optation of minorities before they begin mobilizing themselves? If we want to take the challenge of minorities seriously, we need to develop criteria that allow us to distinguish between paternalizing and emancipatory forms of recognition. Furthermore, we have to be aware of the great risk that a politics of recognition orchestrated from above, regardless of all good intentions, just keeps applying the homogenizing logic, that structured the dominant national identity, to minority groups so that they conform to definitive standards that may be convenient to state bureaucracies, yet fail to meet the challenge of reconciling equality and diversity.

References Alapuro, R. 1988. State and Revolution in Finland. Berkeley: University of California Press. Allardt, E. 1981. ‘Ethnic Minorities’. In E. Allardt, N. Andrén, E. J. Friis et al., eds. Nordic Democracy: Ideas, Issues, and Institutions in Politics, Economy, Education, Social and Cultural Affairs of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Copenhagen: Det danske Selskab, 627–49. Banting, K. and Kymlicka, W., eds., 2006. Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies. Oxford University Press. Brubaker, R. 2003. ‘The Return of Assimilation? Changing Perspectives on Immigration and its Sequels in France, Germany, and the United States’. In C. Joppke and E. Morawska, eds., Toward Assimilation and Citizenship: Immigrants in Liberal Nation-States. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 39–58. Dahl, R. A. 1989. Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press. Eisenstadt, S. N. 1999. Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution: The Jacobin Dimension of Modernity. Cambridge University Press. Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gellner, E. 1997. Nationalism. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Jennings, I. 1956. The Approach to Self-Government. Cambridge University Press. Klausen, J. 1995. ‘Social Rights Advocacy and State Building: T. H. Marshall in the Hands of Social Reformers’. World Politics 47: 244–67. Kraus, P. A. 1996. ‘Minderheiten’. In D. Nohlen, P. Waldmann and K. Ziemer, eds., Lexikon der Politik. Band 4. Die östlichen und südlichen Länder. München: Beck, 369—79. Kristeva, J. 1991. Strangers to Ourselves. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Kymlicka, W. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford University Press. Kymlicka, W. 2007. Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity. Oxford University Press. Lepola, O. 2000. Ulkomaalaisesta suomenmaalaiseksi: Monikulttuurisuus, kansalaisuus ja suomalaisuus 1990-luvun maahanmuuttopoliittisessa keskustelussa. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Mann, M. 2005. The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Cambridge University Press. Offe, C. 1994. Der Tunnel am Ende des Lichts. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus. Rokkan, S. 1999. State Formation, Nation-Building, and Mass Politics in Europe. Oxford University Press. Rosanvallon, P. 2004. Le modèle politique français. Paris: Seuil.

References  Scharpf, F. W. 1999. Governing in Europe: Effective and Democratic? Oxford University Press. Smith, R. M. 2003. Stories of Peoplehood: The Politics and Morals of Political Membership. Cambridge University Press. Stephens, J. D. 1979. The Transition from Capitalism to Socialism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

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Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark

4 Divergence and Convergence in Minority Law and Policies in the Nordic Countries 4.1 Introduction While the differences between the Nordic countries when dealing with migration, minorities, refugees and otherness are considerable, as revealed in the materials examined concerning minorities—including indigenous people, long-term minorities, and more recent immigrants and refugees—in four Nordic countries analysed in this chapter, I argue that the core scientific as well as political and legal problems today are found in a state of tension between two seemingly contradictory logics. One is the logic of the egalitarianism of generalised welfare systems and human rights created after the Second World War coupled with the pre-existing myth of homogenous Nordic societies. The other logic is that of the recent enhanced assertion of cultural diversity under the pressure of increasing migration and mobility coupled with the force of cultural identity as part of a human rights discourse. In this article the core legal and societal identity discourses in the Nordic countries are examined focussing on minority issues in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. I argue that multiculturalism policies in any of these northern countries need to be examined not only in isolation but also in their Nordic context. Apart from the common background of strong welfare states based on egalitarianism in the access of social services we can recall the existence of cross border indigenous and minority groups, including the Sámi and Roma; the common experience of outward migration, most notably at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries; and finally the development of centrally introduced and controlled educational systems which made education accessible for all while reinforcing the consolidation of a unified national identity in each country. The creation of Nordic identities in the 19th century coincides with the movement of literary Nordism in the 18th century and the movement of Scandinavianism in the 19th century; movements linked to a wider effort to enhance peace between former enemies in the region. So, a portion of Finnish, Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian identity, has from the outset placed an emphasis on the Nordic dimension of that identity. The historical experiences of the Nordic countries vary considerably and that has often been underestimated in studies of Nordic comparative politics and law which generally emphasise homogeneity and similarity within and between the Nordic countries.1 Denmark and Sweden are old nation states with a shared

1 Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Sia, et als. (eds.), 2006,,’Introduction’, Pp. 13 – 38., International Obligations and National Debates: Minorities around the Baltic Sea, Mariehamn: The Åland Islands Peace Institute. © 2015 Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.

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historical experience of being great powers in the North of Europe. Norway and Finland are relatively new states, with Norway breaking peacefully out of its Union with Sweden in 1905, and Finland becoming independent in 1917 at the time of the Russian revolution, after being a part of Sweden for several centuries and then an autonomous part of the Russian empire between 1809 and 1917.2 Norway had adopted its own constitution in 1814 during the Union period with Sweden. This event was made necessary since that the Danish-Norwegian king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden with full rights of property and sovereignty as a result of the Napoleonic Wars and the Treaty of Kiel in 1814. Also in other crucial respects there are diverging historical experiences. Finland and Norway have both gone through intensive language debates, primarily in the 19th century, and Finland emerged as an officially bilingual state in 1917. The primary material to be used in the present examination is, however, not of a historical character. The argument concerning the diversity of Nordic identities and the differences of Nordic attitudes to identity diversity is empirically based on the documentation and discussions concerning the implementation of the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) of the Council of Europe in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in the early period of the ratification and entry into force of the Convention (i.e. approximately 19982003). This is then a snapshot of the situation during a particular period of time, but as it shall be shown, it reveals a great deal concerning perceptions and policies in the countries concerned. I shall not make any deeper explorations of domestic parliamentary documents and debates covering these issues during the period of concern. In the present text, emphasis is at state level and the three autonomous regions of the North, namely the Åland Islands, the Faroe Islands and Greenland are not examined in any great detail.3 Iceland has not ratified the convention, but did however sign it when it was originally adopted in 1995.4 It is, however, interesting to note that the population of Iceland has shown great demographic change in recent decades, at a pace far higher than in the other Nordic countries. In 1980 the population of Iceland, a total

2 Archer, Clive & Pertti Joenniemi (eds), 2003, The Nordic Peace, Aldershot: Ashgate. 3 Some would argue that today there is extensive self-government also for the Sámi in the North of Norway, especially since the entry into force of the Finnmarksloven in 2006. This Norwegian piece of legislation introduced a system of co-management in the Finnmark region, giving a strong role to the Sámi. There are, however, also critical assessments of the system. See e.g. comments by Vars, Laila Susanne, 2009, The Sàmi People’s Right to Self-Determination, ph.d. dissertation, Faculty of Law, Tromsø University,. Basic information regarding this legislation is available at: http://finnmarksloven.web4.acos.no/artikkel.aspx?AId=181&back=1&MId1=4 (retrieved May 27, 2010). 4 See a chart of the signatures and ratifications of the Convention at: http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/minorities/6_Resources/PDF_Chart_Monitoring_en.pdf (retrieved May 5, 2010).

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of 228,785 people, had Icelandic citizenship at the rate of 98.6 per cent while 1.4 per cent of the population had a different citizenship.5 These percentages from 1980 were more or less at the same levels as in 1950. In January 2009 the percentage of inhabitants with citizenship other than Icelandic had risen to 7.6 per cent. Most of this increase originates from various European countries, in particular Poland, but there are also considerable numbers of citizens from Thailand and the Philippines. So even in the remote corners of the Nordic region and what are sometimes believed to be the most homogenous countries and regions in the North, demographics are undergoing considerable change. The core issue to be examined in the present inquiry is that of the conceptualisation of the notion of ‘minority’ in the four Nordic countries. This permits us to also indirectly address the issue of so called ‘new minorities’.

4.2 The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and its ratification by the Nordic countries The Framework Convention on the Protection of Persons belonging to National Minorities was adopted by the Council of Europe in 1995 after several decades of debates concerning whether or not there was a need for a specific minority instrument at the Council of Europe. It can be noted that at an early stage Danish representatives were most active in the preparatory work and negotiations on minority issues, in particular the lawyer and politician Hermod Lannung since the 1950s who has been critical of the neglect of minority issues in the context of the European Convention for Human Rights.6 The other Danish representative in the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe at that time, the conservative Ole Bjørn Kraft, supported Lannung but was focussing his attention entirely on the Schleswig situation rather than on a generalised, human rights oriented system.7 As we shall see later on, this bipolarity in Danish understandings on minorities still exists. As of 2011, the Framework Convention has been ratified by a total of 39 states, out of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe. It is therefore seen by doctrine as well as by practitioners very much as a pan-European instrument serving as a baseline for minority protection, even though countries such as Belgium, France,

5 Iceland in Figures 2009-2010, Published by Statistics Iceland, January 2010. Available at http://www.statice.is/lisalib/getfile.aspx?ItemID=10653 (retrieved May 15, 2010) at p. 7. 6 Lannung, Hermod, ‘The Rights of Minorities’, 1968, Pp. 181-195, in Mélanges offerts à Polys Modinos: Problèmes des droits de l’homme et de l’unification européenne, Paris: Pedone. 7 Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Athanasia, 1997, Justifications of Minority Protection in International Law, p. 201.



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Greece and Turkey have yet to ratify the Convention.8 Since it is a framework convention of a human rights character, the convention introduces the minimum level standards of protection for persons belonging to minorities; it does not represent any ideal vision of minority protection. Examining the formal documents and the products of examination and commenting upon State reports under the convention does not reveal the full spectrum of societal understandings concerning minority issues, nor can it unravel the full impact of a particular international instrument on domestic political debates and legal outcomes. Examining the discourse around the Framework Convention is one way of capturing in a comparable manner, the positions, interpretations, and shifts in such positions and understandings, within the countries concerned. The Council of Europe and its Committee of Ministers have developed a comprehensive system to monitor the implementation of the Framework Convention. The Convention itself (Articles 24-26) and its complementary Resolution (97) 10 of the Committee of Ministers, specify the core modalities of this work. A crucial element in this regime is the work done by the Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention, an expert body of eighteen independent experts, nominated by the states’ parties, and elected following a system of rotation among the 39 ratifying countries. The details of this system have been worked out in the interplay of practice of individual states parties, the Advisory Committee and its secretariat and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. States have to submit regular comprehensive reports under all provisions of the Convention. The Advisory Committee has the potential to not only visit the country and meet with the government and state institutions, but also to meet with minority representatives, academics and non-governmental organisations. After the visit it issues an Opinion, which becomes public usually together with the comments and response of the country concerned. The final word is formally in the hands of the Committee of Ministers, which issues a legally binding resolution: a document highlighting the core concerns of the Council of Europe with regard to the implementation of the state’s obligations under the FCNM. However, the importance of the monitoring procedure of the FCNM, in the Nordic countries as in all other states parties, lies primarily in the influence it has on domestic societal debates, as well as in the redefining of the minority issue from a security issue of domestic concern only, to a human rights issue of an internationalised character.

8 Several contributions in Verstichel, Annelies et al. (eds.), 2008, The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities: A Useful Pan-European Instrument, Antwerpen: Intersentia. France is the only of these countries that has not even signed the convention. The normal procedure for the implementation of an international treaty is a two step-procedure whereby a preliminary signature of the treaty is followed by its ratification. Usually there is domestic treatment of the document within the legislative and the executive branches.

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A particular advantage in using the FCNM is the fact that this convention lacks a narrow definition of what is a ‘national minority’, and focus is placed on the construction of identities in relevant domestic discourses within various fields, including legislative and administrative practices as well as in media debates. Each state party to the Convention is left room to identify the persons and groups to be covered by the safeguards included in the Convention. However, this does not entail that countries are left to full discretion in this matter. First of all, the Convention identifies the core elements or aspects of identity of relevance for the protection, maintenance and development of national minorities, namely religion, language, traditions and cultural heritage.9 Secondly, the Convention provides that every person belonging to a national minority shall have the right to freely choose to be treated or not as such. The exercise of any rights under the convention can be done individually or in community with others, thereby transgressing the classic division between individual and collective human rights.10 In the work of the Advisory Committee for the FCNM, a standard approach and phraseology has developed at an early stage, according to which the margin of appreciation of states is to be examined by the Advisory Committee under general principles of international law and the provisions of Article 3 of the FCNM. The Advisory Committee emphasises that such interpretations by states should not result in ‘arbitrary or unjustified distinctions’. This discussion was most extensive in particular with regard to the first state report of Denmark and the Opinion adopted by the Advisory Committee. Originally, many western countries in Europe saw minority treaties developed in the 1990s mainly as a tool for real or potential conflict management needed in the political turbulence at the end of the Cold War, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and more generally the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Such treaties were in the minds of many governments mainly for ‘the others’, not a tool for consolidating or reshaping identity politics and policies in their own country, or in the Nordic region. As we shall see below, this view has slowly been changing over time, mainly as a consequence of domestic debates where international obligations such as the Framework Convention on National Minorities are but one of many adjacent argumentative tools. At the Nordic level, the enhancing of a Nordic identity has been made not only through the creation of Nordic institutions, such as the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers, but also through agreements in the cultural and educational field. In this regard, of particular importance is the Nordic Language Convention

9 Article 5, para. 1 of the FCNM. The full text of the Convention and its explanatory report is available at: http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/minorities/1_AtGlance/FCNM_Texts_en.asp in all the major languages of Europe. 10 Article 3 FCNM.



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which entered into force in 1987 and which regulates the right of Nordic citizens to use their ‘mother tongue’ in contacts with the authorities in another Nordic country.11 In this case the languages covered are not only the more or less mutually intelligible Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, but also Icelandic and even Finnish. Thus, the project of a Nordic identity does not coincide with any single linguistic group. However, at the time when this Convention was adopted in the early 1980s, the idea of multicultural and multilingual Nordic societies was still completely absent in this formal reflection of Nordic cooperation. It was not until 2006 that the Nordic Council of Ministers adopted a Declaration on a Nordic Language Policy in which a chapter addresses issues of multilingualism in the Nordic region and affirms, not only for citizens but in this case for all Nordic residents, the following ‘mother tongues’: Sámi, the Kven language, Meänkieli (the Tornedalian language), Romani, Yiddish and Finnish (in Sweden) and German (in Denmark), all of which are official minority languages in one or more of the Nordic countries.12

In terms of visions, the Declaration identifies four areas in need of more attention in the future. Those areas are: language comprehension and language skills, the parallel use of languages, multilingualism and the Nordic countries as a linguistic pioneering region. Regarding the parallel use of languages, the Ministers that signed the Declaration and their governments emphasise that such parallel use of languages requires at the same time a thorough instruction in the country’s language and the opportunity to use and develop their ‘own mother tongue’. The Declaration ensures further that ‘there is a will to preserve the Nordic language community’ but also to ‘strengthen the position of the Nordic countries as a pioneering region in language issues’. The pioneering element seems to refer to the efforts made to understand and respect the Nordic languages in the other Nordic countries. So, we see that not only at a country level but also at a Nordic level, there is at the moment a consolidation and shift in describing and conceptualising Nordic identities. They are Nordic and thereby linked, but at the same time these identities are multilingual, as well as open to the use of English and the parallel use of multiple languages. In other words, we are witnessing the simultaneous strengthening of regional as well as globalised identities in the Nordic countries. Minorities are trying to find a space within the framework of this new understanding of Nordic identities and the international legal obligations are used as a tool in this configuration.

11 The text of the Convention is available at the website of the Nordic Council: http://www.norden.org/ en/about-nordic-co-operation/agreements/treaties-and-agreements/spraak/spraakkonventionen 12 The text of the Declaration is available at: http://www.norden.org/da/publikationer/publikationer/2007-746/at_download/publicationfile.

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4.3 The concept of ‘minority’ in the four countries examined a) Denmark Denmark ratified the FCNM in 1997 and it entered into force in 1998. In its instrument of ratification, Denmark applied the following declaration handed to the Secretary General at the time of deposit of the instrument of ratification, on September 22nd, 1997: In connection with the deposit of the instrument of ratification by Denmark of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, it is hereby declared that the Framework Convention shall apply to the German minority in South Jutland of the Kingdom of Denmark.

The government of Denmark started off with a very closed, minimal understanding of the minority concerns in the country. The ratification had been preceded by a proposal for a parliamentary resolution by the Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs in November 1996. On April 22nd, 1997 the Folketing gave its approval for ratification.13 The Danish government explained in its declaration referring to: The fact that the border between the Kingdom of Denmark and the Federal Republic of Germany actually does not delimit the areas inhabited by the two peoples. In the regions north and south of the border (which has been fixed since the referendums in 1920) - i.e. South Jutland in Denmark and Schleswig in Germany - Danes and Germans live together in traditional residential areas.

The declaration is interesting in at least two respects. First of all it emphasises the bilateral nature of legal obligations with regard to minorities. The logic seems to be that the Germans in Denmark are entitled to protection due to the bilateral agreements and regime along the Danish-German border, explained at length in the Danish state report. Secondly, the Danish report makes clear that there is to be protection afforded to the German minority, but only in the territorial area originally defined in the referendums of 1920 and later enhanced in the Copenhagen – Bonn Declarations of 1955, i.e. in South Jutland. This has been termed as the territoriality principle and it has been discussed and questioned with regards to various countries and contexts.14,15

13 First State Report of Denmark, ACFC/SR(1999)009, introduction. All relevant documents of the monitoring procedure are also available electronically: http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/minorities/3_FCNMdocs/Table_en.asp (retrieved May 17, 2010). 14 For a most interesting account of the political and philosophical origins of this principle see Clement, Jan ‘Territoriality versus Personality’, in Verstichel, 2008, loc. cit., Pp. 51-68. 15 Kühl, Jörgen & Pedersen, Karin Margrethe, 2006, ‘The German Minority in Denmark’, pp. 39-107, in Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Sia et al. (eds.), International Obligations and National Debates: Minorities around the Baltic Sea.



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The Advisory Committee did indeed engage quite extensively with this subject in its Opinion.16 The Committee noted that the Danish Government takes the view that because territorial home rule arrangements exist for Greenland and the Faroe Islands, the population of these territories, who, like persons belonging to the German minority, have deep historic ties with the Kingdom of Denmark, do not fall within the scope of application of the Framework Convention. Second, the Advisory Committee argued that the fact that a group of persons may be entitled to a form of protection, other than minority protection strictu senso, cannot by itself justify their exclusion from other forms of protection. The second problem in this reasoning, according to the Advisory Committee, concerns the territorial aspect. If the reasoning of the Danish Government is to be followed, the result is that the Greenlanders and Faroese persons enjoy an effective protection of their identity (language, education, culture etc.) within the respective home rule areas, but no such protection outside these areas, notably in mainland Denmark. The Committee concludes: Although the Framework Convention attaches importance in a number of its provisions to the criterion of traditional inhabitation of certain areas for protection, the majority of its provisions are designed to apply throughout the territory of the state concerned, of course taking into account all relevant circumstances.

Even though the first impression of the Danish position indicates a rather narrow understanding of the notion of ‘national minority’ in the Danish context, a closer examination of the first state report indicates that there is information and consideration of migrant integration, discrimination as well as of broader issues of cultural diversity. The government enclosed with its report lists of the largest groups of immigrants, and of the recognised religious communities outside the Danish National Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Advisory Committee expressed concern about discrimination against foreigners and naturalised Danes in the labour market and housing sector and urged the Danish Government in rather vague terms to ‘maintain continuous vigilance’ in discrimination matters. The comment by the Danish Government to these remarks was quite sharp in linking the notion of a person belonging to a minority to the requirement of citizenship. In this respect, the Danish government applies a restrictive interpretation of the requirements necessary to be considered a ‘national minority’ and deviates from the position of most commentators in this field.17

16 ACFC, First Opinion on Denmark, adopted in 2000, ACFC/INF/OP/I(2001)005, paras. 12-24. 17 For a summary of citizenship debates see Verstichel, Annelies, 2008, Pp. 127-158, ‘Personal Scope of Application: An Open, Inclusive and Dynamic Approach – The FCNM as a living instrument’, in Verstichel et al. (eds.), loc. cit.

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While it may be argued that issues of religion seldom occupy any important role in the Opinions of the Advisory Committee, in the case of Denmark there was a directly critical remark. The Advisory Committee had found that for the registration of the names at birth, the state church, under the authority of the state, is exclusively competent, in all areas of Denmark, except Southern Jutland where a names register exists. Thus, all persons, regardless of their religion, are obliged to address the authorities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in order to have the names of their children registered. The Advisory Committee considered therefore that this requirement raises problems of conscience for those who do not belong to the state church and was therefore of the opinion that modifications should be introduced in order to allow persons who so wish, to register the names of their children directly with the state authorities, without having to involve the authorities of the state church.18 So, while noting that a state church system is not in itself in contradiction with the Framework Convention and that the latter does not entail an obligation to fund religious activities per se, the Advisory Committee considered that Denmark should review, in the light of the right to equality before the law and equal protection of the law, the privileged funding of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Furthermore, it considered that persons not belonging to the Evangelical Lutheran Church should not be obliged to have the names of children born to them registered through the state church.19 Finally it can be noted that the Advisory Committee found that given the historic presence of Roma in Denmark, persons belonging to the Roma community ‘cannot be a priori excluded from the personal scope of protection of the Framework Convention’. We shall return to this issue of the Roma in the four Nordic countries in the final section of the present paper. b) Finland Finland ratified the FCNM in 1997 and the treaty entered into force with regard to Finland in 1998. Finland attached an explanatory note to the Act on the Ratification of the Framework Convention, dated September 5th, 1997, in which the Government concluded that it is likely that the question of to whom the Framework Convention should be applied will, ultimately, be determined through the monitoring process.20 In the first state report, submitted in 1999, it is explained that when Finland ratified the Framework Convention, it did not provide a list of national minorities falling within the scope of the Convention.21 The basic idea was, according to the Finnish government, that ‘it is not for the Government to define those minorities, because the existence of minorities does not depend on a declaration by the Government but on the factual

18 ACFC, First Opinion on Denmark, adopted in 2000, ACFC/INF/OP/I(2001)005,., para. 32. 19 Ibid., para 40. 20 First Opinion on Finland, ACFC/INF/OP/I(2001)002, para. 12. 21 First report of Finland, ACFC/SR(1999)003.



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situation in the country.’ However, in practice it has been considered in Finland that the Framework Convention would cover the Sámi people, the Roma, the Jews, the Tatars, the so-called Old Russians and de facto also the Swedish-speaking Finns.22 The concept ‘national minority’ is not used in Finnish law. Section 144, subsection 3 of the Constitution Act of Finland guarantees the right of different ‘groups’ to maintain and develop their own languages and cultures. The Constitution Act does not define more closely these ‘groups’. According to the relevant Government Bill which concerned the revision of the Constitution, the ‘groups’ referred to in the Constitution Act include the Sámi people, the Roma and other national and ethnic minorities, such as the Jews and the Tatars. The relevant explanatory note reads as follows: On the one hand the proposal is not limited to traditional minorities in Finland. On the other hand the groups referred to in [section 14, subsection 3] cannot include groups that only temporarily reside in Finland, but a certain stability and permanency is required from the group to be covered by it. [...] The provision would not only guarantee the language rights of minorities but would extend the protection to minority cultures. [...] [T]he provision would impose an obligation upon the Government to allow and support the development of the languages and cultures of the groups referred to in it. The provision also provides a constitutional basis for developing the living conditions of those groups with full respect for their cultural traditions.23

Indeed in 1999 a revised constitution entered into force in Finland. The relevant provision has the following wording: Section 17 - Right to one’s language and culture The national languages of Finland are Finnish and Swedish. The right of everyone to use his or her own language, either Finnish or Swedish, before courts of law and other authorities, and to receive official documents in that language, shall be guaranteed by an Act. The public authorities shall provide for the cultural and societal needs of the Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking populations of the country on an equal basis. The Sámi, as an indigenous people, as well as the Roma and other groups, have the right to maintain and develop their own language and culture. Provisions on the right of the Sámi to use the Sámi language before the authorities are laid down by an Act. The rights of persons using sign language and of persons in need of interpretation or translation aid owing to disability shall be guaranteed by an Act.24

22 Myntti, Kristian & Nuolijärvi, Pirkko, 2006, , Pp. 171-225, ‘The Case of Finland’, in Spiliopoulou Åkermark et al (eds.), loc. cit. 23 Government Bill 309/1993. Regeringens proposition till riksdagen med förslag till ändring av grundlagarnas stadganden om de grundläggande fri- och rättigheterna. The present translation originates in the first Finnish state report under the FCNM. 24 The Constitution of Finland, 11 June 1999, Parliament Act 731/1999. The full text of the Finnish Constitution is available via the website of the Finnish parliament: http://web.eduskunta.fi/Resource. phx/parliament/relatedinformation/constitution.htx

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In its first report under the FCNM and under the heading ‘minority within minority’, the Government of Finland reported also that ‘it can be said that the Finnishspeaking people living in the Province of Åland and the Inari Sámi and the Skolt Sámi constitute minorities within a minority’. As explained in the report from 1999, on Åland there were some 1,200 Finnish-speaking people, which is less than 5 per cent of the population in the islands, whereas there are in total some 6,400 Sámi living in Finland, but Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi are spoken by some 200 people, respectively.25 In contrast to the Danish approach, Finland has a more open-ended understanding in at least three respects. The existence, or not, of a minority is looked at as a matter of fact rather than a matter of constitutive recognition through legislation. In the Finnish understanding the law does not ‘create’ minorities. It simply attaches consequences to their factual existence. Secondly, the Finnish approach in the new Constitution seems to be more open, in not having a fully closed list of minorities, recognised once and for all, and still speaks of ‘other groups’. Finally, the explanations given in the 1993 Government Bill concerning citizenship, were reproduced in the First report of Finland under the FCNM, and seem to indicate that Finland requires continuity in the connection between groups and the country, but not necessarily ‘traditional’ settlement or citizenship. In dealing with the First Report of Finland, the Advisory Committee raised three distinct points.26 First of all the distinction between ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Russians. The Government had made a distinction between the so-called ‘Old Russians’, a group it considers to be covered by the Framework Convention, and other Russians, who, in the Government’s view, are not covered by the Framework Convention. However, again according to the Government, this distinction has no practical consequences whatsoever. Moreover, a number of representatives of both the so-called ‘Old Russians’ and other Russians had expressed reservations before the Advisory Committee about the said distinction. In view of the foregoing, the Advisory Committee concluded that the advisability of maintaining this theoretical distinction should be examined ‘in consultation with those concerned’. When considering the matter, the consistency of the Government’s approach vis-à-vis various minorities should be ensured, argued the Advisory Committee. The second point discussed by the Advisory Committee was that of the personal scope of application of the Framework Convention with regard to the Swedishspeaking Finns. The Government in its Report considered that the Swedishspeaking Finns were de facto covered by the Framework Convention. The Advisory Committee concluded that Swedish-speaking Finns may indeed rely on the protection provided by the provisions of the Framework Convention. At the same

25 First report of Finland, ACFC/SR(1999)003, para. 6. 26 First Opinion on Finland, ACFC/INF/OP/I(2001)002, paras. 15-18.



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time, the Advisory Committee stressed that, in accordance with Article 3, paragraph 1, of the Framework Convention, every person concerned may decide whether or not he/she wishes to come under the protection flowing from the principles of the Framework Convention. This reminder was necessary in view of the position of representatives of the Swedish Assembly of Finland that the Swedish-speaking Finns do not constitute a minority but rather one of the two official languages of the country, according to the Constitution. Finally the Advisory Committee commented on the situation of Finnish-speakers in Åland and argued that taking into account the level of autonomy enjoyed and/or the nature of the powers exercised by the Province of Åland, the Finnish-speaking population there could also be given the possibility to rely on the protection provided by the Framework Convention as far as the issues concerned are within the competence of the Province of Åland. The Advisory Committee was of the opinion that Finland should consider this issue ‘in consultation with those concerned’, a phrase which has become part of the standard phraseology of the Committee. c) Norway Norway ratified the Convention in March 1999 and the convention entered into force in Norway in July of that same year. There was no formal declaration concerning the personal scope of application of the convention in connection with the ratification process. The term ‘national minority’ was not used at the time in Norwegian legislation. Thus there was no formal legal definition of the term, nor any list of the groups that were considered to be national minorities in Norwegian legislation. However, according to the first report by the Government of Norway, which made reference also to the domestic parliamentary debates, ‘the groups of persons considered to be national minorities in Norway are Jews, Kven (people of Finnish descent living in northern Norway), Roma/Gypsies, the Romani people/Travellers and Skogfinn (people of Finnish descent living in southern Norway)’.27 Regarding the Sámi people in Norway, the government found that they ‘are also a national minority in the terms of international law’. However, the government reported that the Sámediggi (the Sámi Assembly) had declared that it did not consider the Framework Convention to be applicable to the Sámi people, since as an indigenous people the Sámi have legal and political rights that exceed those covered by the provisions of the convention. In keeping with the wish of the Sámediggi, therefore, the Sámi people were not discussed in any detail by the government in its first report. Instead, Norway’s reports on the implementation of ILO Convention

27 Report No. 15 (2000-2001) to the Storting on National Minorities in Norway - On Central Government Policy in respect of Jews, Kven, Roma/Gypsies, the Romani people/Travellers and Skogfinn (available only in Norwegian: St.meld. nr. 15 (2000-2001), Nasjonale minoritetar i Noreg - Om statleg politikk overfor jødar, kvener, rom, romanifolket og skogfinnar).

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No.169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries were appended to the state report under the FCNM.28 The state report includes brief historical accounts of the groups mentioned above but very limited information regarding the Sámi. In Norway, the term ‘national minorities’ is understood to mean minorities with a long-term connection with the country.29 According to the lengthy explanations by the government in its report, minority groups must be in the minority and must hold a non-dominant position in society. Furthermore, they must have distinctive ethnic, linguistic, cultural and/ or religious characteristics that make them substantially different from the rest of the population of Norway. The persons concerned must also have a common will to maintain and develop their own identity. The term ‘long-term connection’ has not been defined, but the Norwegian authorities have taken into consideration a criterion suggested internationally, to the effect that groups must be able to claim a minimum of 100 years of connection with the state in question. Thus, more recent immigrant groups are not deemed to be national minorities in Norway.30 However, as explained by the government, the situation is more nuanced in the case of immigrants to Norway with backgrounds from the same groups that have been granted the status of national minorities in Norway. These immigrants will be eligible for measures designed for the national minority (such as language training) even if the individual immigrant does not have a long-term connection with Norway. This would seem to be of particular importance for Finnish-speakers, and persons who identify with the Jewish and Roma identities, even though it is not expressly mentioned in the state report. Turning to the issue of citizenship as a potential requirement for minority status, it was reported by the government that in order for a minority group to be deemed to be a national minority in Norway, it is ‘normally also required that all or most of the members of the minority group are Norwegian nationals. However, the requirement regarding nationality does not preclude a national minority from comprising individuals who have been granted a residence permit in Norway, but who are not yet Norwegian nationals.’31 In its Opinion on the situation in Norway, the ACFC dealt with the protection of the Sámi minority without using the term ‘national minority’ to describe the population concerned. This approach of the Advisory Committee was said to reflect the applicability of the Framework Convention for indigenous peoples while taking into account the views expressed by the Sámi Parliament with respect to the

28 First report by Norway, ACFC/SR(2001)001, page 4. 29 The fluidity in the construction of long term connection in Norwegian public debates is emphasised by Niemi, Einar, , 2006, Pp. 397-451, ‘National Minorities and Minority Policy in Norway’, in Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Sia et al. (eds.), loc. cit. 30 First report by Norway, ACFC/SR(2001)001, page 18. 31 First report by Norway, ACFC/SR(2001)001, page 18.



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applicability of the Norwegian policy for national minorities to the persons belonging to this indigenous people.32 From the outset, the most difficult issue in Norway, for the government as well as for the Advisory Committee, has been that of the Kven as a group, their language, and the relationship between Kven and Finnish as well as Kven and Sámi. In its Opinion the Advisory Committee indicated that it was conscious of the debate as to whether the language of the Kven minority should be Kven or Finnish in the educational system and in other contexts. The Advisory Committee indicated that it shares the view of the Norwegian Government, that in principle the users of the language themselves are entitled to clarify whether their language is to be regarded as a separate language or a dialect. On the basis of this position, the Advisory Committee therefore simply encouraged the Government to further pursue their dialogue with a wide range of parties concerned, with a view to finding a pragmatic way forward and avoiding artificially imposed solutions.33 With regard to the Roma, it may be worth pointing out that the Norwegian government makes a distinction between the Roma and the Romani/Travellers, something that seems to be endorsed by the persons concerned themselves and consequently also by the Advisory Committee.34 With regard to the issue of whether the Sámi in Norway fall within the personal scope of application of the FCNM, the Advisory Committee underlined that the applicability of the Framework Convention does not necessarily mean that the authorities should in their domestic legislation and practice use the term ‘national minority’ to describe the group concerned. Against this background, the Advisory Committee argued that the protection of the Framework Convention remains available to the Sámi should persons belonging to this indigenous people wish to rely on the protection provided therein. Again, the Advisory Committee encouraged the authorities to continue their dialogue with the Sámi Parliament and others concerned with this issue, with a view to ensuring that the Framework Convention and the treaties designed for indigenous peoples ‘are not construed as mutually exclusive regimes and that the Sámi can continue to rely on a wide range of international norms’.35 Concerning non-citizens, the Advisory Committee was quite pro-active in its position in the Opinion on Norway. It found that it would be possible to consider the inclusion of persons belonging to ethnic and linguistic groups, not considered by the government as national minorities and including non-citizens ‘as appropriate’, in the application of the Framework Convention on an ‘article-by-article basis’. In this connection, the Advisory Committee noted ‘with satisfaction’ that the Norwegian government considers that non-citizens belonging to the national minorities listed in the report can benefit from the general measures aimed at the protection of

32 ACFC Opinion on Norway, ACFC/INF/OP/I(2003)003, para. 9. 33 Ibid, para. 10. 34 Ibid., para. 15. 35 Ibid., para. 19.

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national minorities. As we saw in the Opinion on Denmark, the ACFC found it to be problematic that the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Norway enjoys a number of benefits not available to other religious communities, even though ‘a state church system is not in itself in contradiction with the Framework Convention’. There was also considerable controversy in Norway, around the introduction of the subject ‘Knowledge on Christianity, including religious and ethical education’ in the public schools curriculum, and the ACFC argued that such a system needs to be coupled with particular attention to the situation of other religions and the principles of Article 8 in the Convention, which provide that persons belonging to minorities have a right to ‘manifest his or her religion or belief and to establish religious institutions, organisations and associations’.36 d) Sweden Sweden was the last of the Nordic countries examined to ratify the Framework Convention, when doing so in February 2000. Interestingly, the then government of Sweden was the only one of the four examined that made an effort from the very outset to identify the goals of its minority policies. Those are defined as ‘to provide protection for the national minorities and promote their opportunities for influence and also to support their historic minority languages so that they are kept alive’.37 What is meant by ‘providing protection’ is not defined in the report, but it is coupled with notions of language maintenance and participatory inclusion.38 Early in the report, the government describes Sweden as a country with a strong presence of persons born outside Sweden, indicating that in the beginning of the year 2000 more than 10 per cent of the population was born abroad.39 This is emphasised further in the text when it is said that Sweden ‘is today a country characterised by ethnic and cultural diversity, where every fourth inhabitant was born in another country or has parents who were born abroad’. The ethnic groups who in recent times have immigrated to Sweden are, however, according to the position of Sweden, not regarded as national minorities ‘as they do not satisfy the criteria for national minorities established by the Government, concerning among other things, a long historic bond with Sweden’.

36 ACFC Opinion on Norway, ACFC/INF/OP/I(2003)003, para. 84. 37 First report by Sweden, ACFC/SR(2001)003, p. 5. 38 For a discussion of the limits of Swedish experiences with regard to participatory arrangements, see Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Sia & Leena Huss, 2006, Pp. 545-587, ‘Ten Years of Minority Discourse in Sweden’, in Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Sia et al. (eds.), loc. cit. 39 First report by Sweden, ACFC/SR(2001)003, p. 6. Today the percentage of persons born abroad in the Swedish population has risen to 14,3per cent and has been steadily increasing since the 1960ies. See the official population statistics, http://www.scb.se/Pages/TableAndChart____26040.aspx (as of May 4th, 2010).



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While the concept of ‘national minority’ was not defined in Swedish legislation, the government referred extensively to the preparatory work done for the Government Bill 1998/99:143 National Minorities in Sweden, where it is stated that the following criteria should be satisfied for a group to be regarded as a national minority: –– Groups with a pronounced affinity who, numerically in relation to the remainder of the population, have a non-dominating position in society. The determination of the group cannot only be made according to the numeric number of persons within the group but importance must be attached here to the structure and unity of the group. –– Religious, linguistic, traditional and/or cultural belonging. Only one of the listed characteristic features need exist, but those characteristic features that the group demonstrates must in some essential respect distinguish it from the majority. –– Self-identification. The individual and also the group should have a desire and ambition to retain their identity. –– Historical or long bonds with Sweden. The Government does not consider that it is possible to draw an absolute limit measured in years. Minority groups whose minority culture existed in Sweden prior to the 20th century may be said to satisfy the requirement for a historic or long bond. On the basis of these criteria, the minority policy decisions of the Government and the Swedish parliament entailed the acknowledgement of five groups as national minorities in Sweden. These were the Sámi, who were also regarded as an indigenous people, Swedish Finns, Tornedalers, Roma and Jews.40 There are clear parallels to the approach adopted in Norway, both regarding the issue of citizenship and long bond as well as pertaining to the construction of the recognition pattern of the various groups. The Swedish Finns and the Tornedalers are looked at as separate groups and languages (in a way similar to the Kven, Finns and Skogsfinns in Norway). The Sámi are dealt with as a unitary entity, even though with relation to language issues the various Sámi languages are seen in their respective particularities. In the Swedish report, the North, Lule and South Sámi language varieties are mentioned separately. As we earlier saw, Finland makes specific reference to the Inari and Skolt Sámi, possibly because of the importance of specific legislative provisions for them, and in particular the Skolt Sámi. In contrast the Norwegian report deals with the Sámi in a completely unitary way. Longstanding bonds are required in Sweden for qualifying as a minority, but citizenship is not an absolute requirement, as newly arrived persons belonging to an already existing minority are looked at as merging into this group. In the case of Sweden this was of particular importance for the Finns who had migrated to Sweden in significant numbers after World War II, but where there has also been a

40 Ibid., p. 9.

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longstanding presence for centuries, due to the common united history that Sweden and Finland share, dating back more than 600 years prior to 1809. In its first Opinion on Sweden, the ACFC raised this issue of citizenship in an appreciative manner.41 The Committee noted that in its dialogue with the Swedish authorities they have confirmed that ‘the provisions of the Framework Convention are to be implemented in the same way for all persons belonging to these particular minorities regardless of whether or not they are Swedish citizens’. This approach was strongly welcomed by the Advisory Committee, who noted that bearing in mind that a large number of persons concerned are not Swedish citizens, this inclusive approach contributes to the impact of the Framework Convention and helps to avoid any arbitrary or unjustified distinctions within these minorities.42

4.4 Concluding reflections From the examination conducted in this chapter it is apparent that there are some common elements recurring in all the Nordic countries. First of all, it is easy to assert that in none of the countries analysed is there a priori a ‘self-evident’ and definitive list of national minorities. The categorisation of a group as a group and as a minority falling within the scope of application of the Framework Convention is a decision taken by each government against the political dynamics in that country, including the mobilisation of the relevant groups themselves, the bulk of scientific evidence selected and gathered in each specific case and the comments and dialogue with the institutions supervising and implementing the Convention at the national and international levels. However, as shown in the Norwegian case where Kven was recognised in 2005 as a language in its own right by the Norwegian government, the categorisations and definitions made at a certain point of time are not definitive and permanent but subject to revision and amendation. The difficulty in this negotiability is the potential risk it implies in terms of increasing competition and possibly even hostility between groups both in majority – minority and minority – minority situations. This risk is evident if minority and diversity regimes are perceived and managed as zero sum games where one group loses if another gains in terms of resources and power. Are there any ways to avoid such risks or at least minimise them? In my view a crucial factor is the decision making traditions and cultures prevailing in the states and societies concerned. In many cases in the Nordic countries, discussions between the state and a certain group are only bilateral, i.e. minority – state. In such discussions the views of other minority

41 First Opinion on Sweden, ACFC/INF/OP/I(2003)006, para. 16. 42 Ibid.



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groups are not heard and the totality of issues, interests and claims is never revealed for all interest holders. The process of categorisation and hierarchisation can in itself be more or less participatory. In some cases, certain groups said by the state to constitute a minority refuse themselves such categorisation, such as is the case with the Sámi in Norway or the Swedish-speakers in Finland. In my understanding this does not indicate that they categorically refuse the relevance of the Framework Convention for their empirical situation. It rather indicates a preference for a different ‘tag’ or legal category to which there is attached a different conceptual package. So, when the Sámi prefer the ‘indigenous’ tag, this is an argumentative move in order to underline that the issue of land rights and natural resources is at the center of indigenous self-identification. In a similar vein, when the Swedish-speakers in Finland prefer to be addressed as ‘one of the two official languages’ in Finland and not ‘simply’ as a minority, this is to say that in this case there is a strong constitutional basis and tradition and practice with regard to the position of Swedish as one of the two official languages in Finland which goes far beyond the minimum rules encompassed in the Framework Convention. However, from a legal perspective while this is true, it does not exclude the possibility that the Framework Convention can function as an interpretative background and tool for the authorities as well as for the groups concerned; or, as a minimum standard with regard to the rights and obligations regarding such cases as well. There are several important differences in the way issues of identity and minority rights are dealt with in the four Nordic countries examined. These differences are of course established in this text at the level of formal discursive practices and exchanges of positions at the official as well as internationalised level. So, for any robust conclusions to be drawn one would need to refine them with an examination over longer time periods and in domestic debates as well. The justificatory patterns of minority protection in international law follow four main paths: peace and security; individually oriented human dignity; group oriented protection and promotion of culture and cultural diversity; and democratic participation and pluralism.43 Following such a theoretical categorisation of minority protection regimes, it is possible to look at the Nordic countries as representing more or less one or the other of these models. Denmark has the most restrictive understandings and policies in a number of respects, including the views regarding citizenship as a requirement for minority protection, the position of persons from Greenland and the Faroe Islands on mainland Denmark, as well as the reciprocal basis of minority obligations, focussing entirely on the position of the Germans in the South of Denmark. In these respects, it represents perhaps more strongly the ‘peace and security’ justificatory understanding of minority

43 Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Sia, ‘Shifts in the Multiple Justifications of Minority Protection’, 2010, in European Yearbook of Minority Issues, Vol. 7, 2007/08 (2010), 5-18.

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protection. While it is less clear in the examined materials, Sweden seems from the above to be arguing mainly along the path of democratic participation and pluralism. Finland and Norway are more traditional in terms of the human dignity and cultural protection goals of their policies. Norway and Sweden share the basic constructions of identities of the groups in their respective societies, while all four countries give very limited accounts of their struggles in managing the evolving identities of the Roma and Traveller groups. Sweden and Norway share the somewhat ambivalent relationship with their Finnish language populations, while Finland, similarly as with Denmark in relation to Greenland and the Faroe Islands, seems unable to find an appropriate model for describing and accommodating minority issues in its autonomous region, Åland. While Denmark has essentially a hands-off policy with regard to its autonomous regions, the situation seems to be more complicated with regard to Åland. All the countries seem to run into trouble with regard to their systems of privileges of the state churches. This is quite remarkable in a part of the world that sees itself as secularised and unaffected by various kinds of religious discussions and disagreements. In Finland public financing is provided automatically to two faiths, the Evangelical Lutheran Church and to the Russian Orthodox Church, while there is only one such privileged faith in the other three countries. For this reason it is not entirely a surprise that there are multiple debates surfacing around the Nordic countries at the moment, not least with regard to the position of the Lutheran faith in education and the role of religion in the education system. From the legal point of view this covers issues of the modes for teaching religion and theology at school, the conditions for establishment of private or independent religious schools, the observance of religious holidays of various faiths, as well as the issue of religious symbols in classrooms and schools. As in many other countries, diversity and multiculturalism present considerable challenges of a theoretical as well as practical nature. In the Nordic countries the combination of egalitarian welfare systems with the required sensitivity towards minority identities has meant the need to rethink the way things such as day care facilities, schools, elderly homes and the health system are able and prepared to meet legitimate expectations and the needs of minorities, without however overloading the systems with unrealistic requirements and costs. In many cases the response has been that of using and adapting the resources already existing, for instance in Sámi speaking areas in Norway or in the Finnish speaking areas of Sweden. However, there is still a lot more discussion to be expected in years to come with regard to what should be seen as legitimate expectations and normatively guaranteed rights for minorities in the region.

Birte Siim

5 Migration, Multiculturalism and Gender – a Nordic Perspective Migration and multiculturalism represent new challenges for the Nordic countries in terms of welfare, democracy and citizenship. The countries are often believed to belong to the same welfare and gender systems with a strong tradition for social rights and gender equality and a relatively weak tradition of diversity. However, the countries have different histories and institutions and have recently developed different approaches and policies towards migration and integration of ethnic minorities. Sweden has adopted the most multicultural policies, while Denmark since 2001 has adopted relatively restrictive policies (see Hedetoft et al 2006), with Norway and Finland positioned somewhere in between in terms of regulation and discursive framings of migration and integration policies. Nordic research suggests that in spite of these differences the countries face similar challenges in attempting to include immigrants and minorities as equal citizens in the labour market, in democracy and society (Brochmann and Hagelund 2005). Power is multidimensional and includes the power to (re)define what democracy, social justice and gender equality should be under the present conditions of globalisation and migration. Gender equality has today become a widely accepted principle, and the growth of many types of feminisms – post-structural, post-modern and post-colonial feminism – have made visible that there is no longer consensus about what is best for women or about strategies to empower women (Mulinari et al. 2009). The ‘turn to diversity’ in research is similar to the strong emphasis in gender theory and research on intersectionality, which is to say, studying how gender intersects with ethnicity/race and other kinds of inequality creating complex social categories (Yuval-Davis 2006; Squires 2007). Migration and multiculturalism have become highly politicised. Research has demonstrated that gender equality in many European countries, is being instrumentalised by political anti-migration forces on the Left and the Right, to, for example, argue against a patriarchal and oppressive Muslim culture (Kilic et al. 2008; Lombardo and Verloo 2009). This is also the case in the Nordic countries where scholars have noticed that the dominant ‘victimisation discourse’, which contrasts gender equality in the (white) majority with the oppression of women in the Muslim minority, resonates especially well with the Nordic gender system (Gullestad 2006; Christensen and Siim 2009). This paper first briefly revisits the academic debate about gender equality and multiculturalism. Multiculturalism has been accused of being gender-blind, and the debates have illuminated the tensions between multiculturalism and gender equality (Okin 1999). Multicultural approaches have focussed on the accommodation of diversity as the key concept (Modood 2007), while feminist approaches have focussed © 2015 Birte Siim This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.

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on gender (in)equality as the key concept (Phillips 2008). The two bodies of thought have thus addressed different problems but there is a growing interest on both sides in exploring complex diversities (Kraus 2009) and multidimensional inequalities, i.e. the intersections of different kinds of differences and inequalities (Yuval-Davis 2007; Lombardo, Meier and Verloo 2009). Arguably, perceptions of diversity and gender equality/women’s rights are contextual and dynamic, and intersecting diversities and inequalities are embedded within national histories, institutions and policies (Lister et al. 2007; Yuval-Davis 2007; Lombardo, Meier and Verloo 2009). Secondly, this paper explores ‘the multicultural dilemma’ from a Nordic perspective focussing on the intersections of gender with ethnicity/race and religion. It looks at the criticism of the Nordic welfare state, in particular its integration and gender equality policies from the perspective of immigrant women. During the last 30 years, the discourse surrounding women’s rights and gender equality has become an intrinsic part of Nordic national identities and belongings (Gullestad 2006; Melby et al. 2008). The welfare states have been labelled ‘women-friendly’ due to the high level of women participating in the labour market, education and politics, the system of public childcare and parental leave, as well as extended gender equality legislation in these countries (Borchorst and Siim 2008). The women-friendly social policies and practices were linked to a strong Nordic state feminism, which has empowered women as workers, citizens and mothers. However, the Nordic welfare states have been criticised by feminist scholars for being blind to the cultural diversities among women (los Reyos, Mulino and Mulinari 2003; Borchorst and Siim 2008). On this basis the third section gives a more detailed account of how the principle of gender equality is balanced with ethnic and religious diversity by looking at the headscarf debates and regulations in the three Scandinavian countries. It first compares the difference in the regulation and framings of arguments on the Danish and Norwegian labour market sites which involved a conflict between two liberal principles: the freedom of religion versus employers’ power to determine the dresscode of employees. In spite of similarities the reasoning and rulings in the two cases turned out to be different (see Siim and Skjeie 2008). In the Danish case the power of employers overrode arguments for freedom of religion, while it was the other way round in the Norwegian case. The Swedish case is different, because it concerned conflicts around the prohibition of veiling in public institutions between educational institutions, which wanted to prohibit the burka/niqab and the Swedish board of Education. Here the ‘freedom of religion’ argument also prevailed (see Lanefelt 2010). This section discusses the meanings and implications of these differences for gender equality and accommodation of diversity. The final section sums up the dilemma between multiculturalism/diversity and gender equality from a theoretical perspective as well as from the Nordic context. It argues that demands for gender equality and for accommodation of religious and cultural diversity are not deep value conflicts but contextual conflicts which represent equally valid principles that need to be balanced against each other in



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liberal democracies. From the perspective of deliberative democracy women in minority groups should participate in negotiations concerning different claims to social justice. How are claims for diversity and gender equality balanced in the Nordic countries? In this political-institutional and discursive context, claims about gender equality and women’s rights have traditionally been more powerful principles than claims for accommodation of immigrant and minority groups. The present marginalisation of immigrant groups in the labour market and their relative powerlessness in democratic politics represent problems for the welfare states, which need to be addressed by innovative ‘diversity politics’. Immigrant women present specific challenges to the Nordic welfare states that often praise themselves for being a model for gender equality. It is a common challenge for Nordic welfare states to develop more inclusive integration strategies that are able to overcome the inequalities in power and resources between the native majority and immigrant groups, which include seeking to locate ethnic minority groups on an equal par with the native majority.

5.1 Rethinking citizenship and diversity Immigration and mobility across and within national borders has challenged the nation state and raised critical questions about citizenship, national communities and belongings. Migration has been followed by growing concerns about the integration of immigrants and refugees in the national communities where they have settled and about cultural conflicts between old majorities and new minorities. Questions related to citizenship, migration and the politics of belonging have become crucial political issues across Europe. The citizenship approach has illuminated the tensions in liberal democracies between concerns for equality/gender equality on the one hand and accommodation of religious and cultural diversity on the other hand (Lister et al 2007; Modood et al 2007; Siim and Squires 2008). The citizenship frame has addressed issues of exclusion and inclusion of individuals and social groups in society. Key questions are: who is included and who is excluded – who is defined as being ‘inside’ national communities and who is defined as being ‘outside’. In T.H. Marshall’s classical citizenship model equal civil, political and social rights for all people legally living in the country were attached to the nation state (Marshall 1950). Within this citizenship tradition scholars often distinguish between three dimensions: a) equal status, rights and obligations; b) political participation and citizens’ voices and c) political identities and belongings (Bellamy et al. 2003). The focus in the classical model on the inclusion of the working class in society has been criticized from a gender and diversity perspective, and the citizenship approach has subsequently been redesigned to address the inclusion/ exclusion of women and marginalised social groups in society (Kymlicka 1995; Lister 1997).

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Globalisation, Europeanisation and increased migration and mobility across and within borders have challenged the classical citizenship model attached to the nation state. Claims for the recognition of diversity has raised new issues about the state’s obligation to respect ethno-national and ethno-cultural rights of minorities (Kymlicka 1995; Eisenberg et. al 2005). One position, held by for example Will Kymlicka (1995), has criticised the primary focus on equal rights and has proposed new multicultural models, which recognise the ethno-cultural and ethno-national rights of minorities. Meanwhile, Soysal (1994) for example, has criticised the nation state bias of the citizenship approach and has proposed new post-national citizenship models. Comparative research has explored the contextual nature and routes to citizenship and has identified citizenship regimes with different political opportunity structures and discursive framings of equality and diversity (e.g. Koopmans and Statham 2000; Bellamy et. al. 2003). Research has explored the historical roots, institutional variations and cultural meanings of gender, race/ethnicity and class (in)equalities according to processes of inclusion and exclusion cross-nationally. A key issue is how policies and discourses affect citizens’ individual and collective identities/belongings as well as their practice. In this context citizenship concerns more than rights and obligations, since the notion of ‘lived citizenship’ refers to ‘a set of social and political relationships, practice and identities that together can be described as a sense of belonging’ (Lister et al. 2007:9). The idea of the nation/nation state as an ‘imagined community’ was introduced by the American scholar Benedict Anderson, who defined the nation as imagined ‘because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion’ (Anderson 1983:15). Nira Yuval-Davis has redefined the linkage between citizenship and national belongings from a gender perspective. The influential book Gender and Nation (Yuval-Davis 1997) offers examples of how the creation of identity politics has been used to exclude specific groups while showing how gender has helped define the nation as an imagined community, for example via arguments of origin, kinship, culture and religion. Yuval Davis has also recently explored the notion of belonging as a way to enrich and clarify discussions of contemporary citizenship and has proposed a ‘multi-layered citizenship’ model (2007). The main argument is that people are no longer connected primarily to the nation state but are simultaneously citizens in more than one political community. Yuval-Davis’ approach is based upon an analytical separation of ‘belonging’ and ‘the politics of belonging’. ‘Belonging’ refers to emotional attachment and about feeling at home and feeling safe, whereas ‘politics of belonging’ refers to ‘specific political projects aimed at constructing belonging in particular ways to particular collectives that are, at the same time, themselves being constructed by these projects in very particular ways’ (Yuval-Davis 2006a:197). In other words, ‘politics of belonging’ is basically about demarcations of who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ of communities. According to Yuval-Davis, analyses of ‘belonging’ must be founded



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on an intersectionality perspective, which analyses how gender intersects with other kinds of inequalities and diversities. Yuval-Davis emphasises that: There is no meaning to the notion of ‘black’, for instance, which is not gendered and classed, no meaning for the notion of ‘women’, which is not ethnocided and classed, etc. This is a very important point when we discuss issues of citizenship and belonging, because so much of the discussion on these issues, inspired by identity politics, attempts to homogenize the differential meanings of such identity notions such as blacks or women, etc. (Yuval-Davis 2007:565-66).

I find that the intersectional approach to citizenship is a methodological approach for studying gender and diversity, because it addresses the interrelations between inclusion and exclusion of gender and marginalised groups. National histories, political institutions and belongings affect both the meanings and interactions of the social categories, e.g. gender, race/ethnicity and class, but national models often fail to overcome the nation state bias of the citizenship approach. One of the challenges for the citizenship approach is therefore to move ‘beyond the nation state’ both in terms of a conceptual move (Beck 2002) and in terms of exploring citizenship at the transnational level, e.g. EU-citizenship (Faist 2007).

5.2 Multicultural citizenship and gender equality This section looks at the challenge of ‘the turn to diversity’ for gender theory and research and discusses feminist approaches to overcome the unitary bias in social and political theories (Squires 2007). It is inspired by Ange-Marie Hancock’s (2007) distinction between unitary, multiple and intersectionality approaches to difference and diversity, which is used to categorise the different models. Unitary approaches address one primary category, for example gender, race/ethnicity or class, and tend to neglect other kinds of diversities and inequalities. Multiple and intersectional approaches both address more than one category and the categories matter equally; but in the multiple approach the categories have a predetermined relationship to each other, whereas the relationship between categories is an open empirical question in the intersectional approach (2007:64). The debate about multiculturalism was particularly sparked by Will Kymlicka’s influential book Multicultural Citizenship (1995). The book presented one of the most comprehensive multicultural approaches, and introduced a strong defense for the accommodation of the cultural diversity of minority groups. Kymlicka’s concept of multicultural citizenship (1995) distinguished between three forms of group-differentiated rights: a) self-governing rights for national minorities, b) polyethnic rights for ethnic minorities, and c) special representation rights for historically disadvantaged groups. The later notion of ‘diverse citizenship’ (Kymlicka and Norman eds. 2000) proposes a comprehensive model for accommodating different types of minorities. Kymlicka’s model was criticised for defending group rights and for not

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addressing diversities and inequalities related to gender (Okin 1999) and religion (Modood 2007). Tariq Modood (2007) has criticised Kymlicka’s approach for a liberal bias and for the dominant focus on national minorities. He has introduced an alternative conception of political multiculturalism based on the ideas of ‘difference’, ‘multi’, ‘equal dignity’ and ‘equal respect’. Modood’s is interested in the accommodation of religious groups. He emphasises the novelty of the ethno-religious mix in European democracies and the need to include Muslims in contemporary conceptions of democratic citizenship at the level of ‘identities, associations, belonging, including diasporic connexions, behaviour, culture, religious practice etc., and political mobilization’ (p.50). It is the focus on religious groups, which makes Modood’s approach unique, whereas the argument that accommodation policies must recognise groups, not just individuals, is similar to Kymlicka’s approach. Kymlicka’s multicultural paradigm was criticised by feminists because it neglects gender differences. Susan Moller Okin claimed in an influential article titled: ‘Is multiculturalism bad for women?’ (1999) that there is a contradiction between multiculturalism, defined as protection of the cultural rights of minorities, and women’s rights. The article provoked an intense debate in the US (see Cohen 1999), which later spread to Europe (Eisenberg 2005). Her main point was that minority groups often have patriarchal religious and family structures, and therefore should not be defended as a strategy to achieve gender equality and improve women’s rights. The claim is that group rights, exemplified by forced marriages and polygamy, are potentially, and in many cases also in practice, anti-feminist and harmful for women. First, group rights strengthen men’s patriarchal control over women in minority cultures, and secondly it is the most powerful men who formulate the interests, values and practices of the group. Okin’s approach was read by many as a ‘liberal defense’ of universal gender equality against cultural diversity. The attack on the multicultural paradigm was criticised as being premised upon an essentialist perception of ‘culture’ which would force minority women to choose between ‘my rights and my culture’. Okin later clarified her position explaining that she is not against collective rights per se and that the main point had been to give women a voice in all negotiations about groups rights (2005:88-89). The debate inspired a growing emphasis on both ‘the paradox of multicultural vulnerability’, i.e. the idea that vulnerable social groups’ needs and interests can be undermined by group rights (Shachar 2000:200), and on giving women and other vulnerable groups a voice in both minority cultures and in society (see for example Eisenberg et al. 2005; Modood et al. 2006). In a response to this criticism, Kymlicka stressed that states should only protect the collective rights of minorities through external restrictions on the majority, for example through representation rights and language rights, but states should not defend collective rights that impose internal restrictions of individual rights/autonomy within the group (1999:31-34). He argued that feminism and multiculturalism are



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potential allies in a struggle for a more inclusive concept of justice which combines individual and collective rights and takes account of both gender-based and ethnic diversity. Anne Phillips (2007) has also argued that egalitarians should be committed to both sex equality and at least some version of multiculturalism and has introduced a deliberative ‘diversity model’ without culture and without groups. The argument is that rights should be attached primarily to individuals and thus the main problems concern discrimination: ‘the multicultural question is – whether existing legislation is biased towards the cultural identities or religious beliefs of particular groups. Laws and rules that enjoy majority support may reflect a cultural bias’ (2007:166). This is a controversial model premised upon individual rights and aims to abolish collective rights of cultural groups. Thus, multiculturalist and feminist approaches present competing equality claims, but conflicts between claims for gender equality and recognition of religious diversity, around veiling for example, should not be regarded as deep values. They are contextual dilemmas, which may be resolved through democratic negotiations with the participation of women from minority groups. Okin’s approach to women’s rights can be categorised as a unitary approach, because gender is the main category. Will Kymlicka and Anne Phillip’s approaches to accommodate national minorities, immigrant groups and gender are multiple approaches, which focus on at least two categories. Only Yuval-Davis’ citizenship model is explicitly intersectional, and the relationship between the categories gender, ethnicity and nationality, is an open empirical question dependent on time and space. The next section addresses the multicultural challenge to gender equality from a Nordic perspective and discusses in more detail how gender intersects with ethno-cultural and ethno-religious diversity in headscarf debates.

5.3 The multicultural challenge1 to the Nordic welfare states In comparative research the Nordic countries are often considered to belong to the same welfare and gender model characterised by a large and generous public sector, a high level of universalism and many tax financed benefits. In spite of these similarities the Nordic countries have different histories and experiences with immigration and have adopted different approaches and policies towards migration and integration.

1 The multicultural challenge refers to the accommodation of diversity at the structural, institutional and individual level. Ulrich Beck (2002) has explored the multicultural dilemma at the individual level where multiculturalism ‘fosters an individual who remains dependent on his/her original cultural space’. He has analysed the ‘local-global dilemma and Beck’s notion of ‘internal globalization’ is presented as a way to connect the dilemmas associated with globalization and migration.

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Sweden has a history of work-related immigration since the 1960s, while Finland was a country of emigration (especially to Sweden) until the 1980s, and has had restrictive migration and refugee policies even in the 1990s and 2000s.2 Denmark’s immigration was also work-related in the 1960s but the country adopted a stop for immigration in 1973; Norway experienced immigration from Third-world countries at the end of the 1960s but imposed an immigration ban in 1975. A study on the challenges to the Nordic welfare regimes from migration, for the Nordic Council, indicates that in spite of these differences in governments’ policies and discourses towards immigration, there are similar problems with discrimination and failed integration of immigrants in the labour market and in society (Brochmann and Hagelund 2005). The three Scandinavian countries have been interpreted as one welfare model with three exceptions (Brochmann and Hagelund 2010). Comparative research from the three Scandinavian countries has started to explore the different policy responses to the challenge from migration and diversity: The multicultural Swedish model represents a relatively accommodating response towards diversity, which is often contrasted with the restrictive Danish response; while the pragmatic Norwegian response is positioned somewhere in between (Hagelund 2009). Recent DanishSwedish comparisons of policies and discourses indicate that the framing of the issues, i.e. whether public and political discourse label diversity as a threat or an asset and whether the political majority manages to frame ethnic minority groups as some of ‘them’ or as part of ‘us’, instead of perceiving diversity as an asset, is one of the key factors in shaping public policies (Hedetoft, Pettersson and Sturfelt 2006). The studies conclude that while the integration discourses and policies are divergent there may be an actual convergence in the practical effects of integration policies (Hedetoft 2006:406). The Nordic Report on the welfare political consequences of immigration has demonstrated that there is a growing emphasis on labour market participation as the route to integration in all the Nordic countries (Brochmann and Hagelund 2005:2010). There are, however, still important differences. The Swedish activation programmes tend to be general and voluntary based upon ‘an individual rights model' (Borevi 2010), whereas the Danish integration programmes since 2002 have been premised upon ‘an individual obligation model' with economic sanctions that target immigrant groups (Emerek and Bak Jørgensen 2009). One example is the Danish introduction benefit ‘starthjælpen', which is targeted towards new immigrants and is lower than the social benefit ‘kontanthjælpen' directed towards Danish citizens.

2 In 2005 Finland’s foreign population from countries outside the EU, the Nordic countries and North-America, were only 3.4 per cent of the total population, while Sweden’s foreign population ratio was 12.4. Denmark and Norway were in between with a medium-size foreign born population ratio of 6.5 and 7.8 respectively. The largest immigrant groups in Denmark, Norway and Sweden come from Turkey, Pakistan and Ex-Yugoslavia (Brochmann & Hagelund 2005).



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This differentiation with regard to nationality is a break with the key principle in the universal welfare state which treats all individuals equally. Another example is the so-called ‘300 hour rule' which is targeted towards married couples and providers above the age of 25 who have received social benefits during the last 2 years. They will lose the right to social benefits if they have not been employed at least 300 hours (later raised to 450 hours) during the last 24 months. This rule has been heavily criticised for targeting the most vulnerable groups, especially immigrant women, but the Government insists that it is a necessary economic sanction/inducement in order to integrate migrants within the labour market. What have been the effects of these policies is highly contested, whether they have been a success or a failure in terms of integration of migrants into the labour market (Jønsson and Petersen 2010:200-209). In the comparative book The Limits to Welfare (2010) Brochmann and Hagelund argue that the founding and evolution of the Nordic welfare states can be interpreted as a ‘welfare nationalism’ based upon integration with three central elements: democracy, citizenship and modernisation. The book studies differences and similarities in the interactions between the welfare state and the new immigrants to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The focus is on both the policy shifts towards immigrants from WWII until 2010, and on intended as well as unintended effects of the interactions between policy changes in the three countries. One example is the unintended consequences of the adoption of restrictive immigration policies by the newly elected Danish government in 2001 which greatly increased the number of immigrants to Norway and Sweden. Karen Borevi (2010) has analysed whether Sweden is an exception to the general retreat from multiculturalism with an emphasis on national cohesion and belonging rather than the accommodation of cultural and ethnic subgroups. She argues that there is a trend towards a greater emphasis on individual obligations in welfare policies. In spite of this, Swedish integration policies still tend to be based on individual ‘rights’ rather than obligations. Three examples may illustrate how Swedish integration policies differ from the general Nordic (and European) trend: a) Swedish politicians have rejected citizenship tests, i.e. the obligation for immigrants to learn the Swedish language and history as a condition for citizenship; b) the Swedish introduction programmes are still voluntary and not mandatory; and c) immigrants have the freedom to chose where to live (Borevi 2010:116-130). Brochmann and Hagelund conclude that the most fundamental similarity in the integration approach of the three Scandinavian countries is the emphasis on labour market integration and activation, where the obligation to participate in the labour market has been strengthened. In general all three countries conform to the ideal of civic integration, but the countries are clearly distinguished in terms of their official requirements for immigrants. Only in the case of Sweden do rights clearly come before duties, as in Marshall’s theory, the most explicit differences can be found at the political-ideological level: Sweden has the clearest redefinition of a demos-based nation-state, with, for example, the right to dual citizenship.

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This contrasts with Denmark, which between 2001 and 2005 has experienced a shift towards ethnos, with 9 years residence as a condition for citizenship, for example. Norway has an unclear middle-position in terms of official requirements for immigrants (Brochmann and Hagelund 2010: 356-357). It is however, not evident what the implications of these political-ideological differences are in practice. Accommodative cultural policies do not always lead to successful integration in the labour market. Research indicates that there may be unexpected consequences of both the individual rights based Swedish policies, which may be ineffective in terms of economic and social integration, and the restrictive Danish policies based upon individual obligations, which may prove to be effective. The three countries are today de facto multicultural countries, which are presently forced to re-define the national welfare projects faced with global mobility and a growing demand for labour power. The comparative analysis demonstrates that traditional welfare state policies have not been successful in developing equality based policies towards new immigrant groups (Brochmann and Hagelund 2010:367). There is clearly a basis for more comparative Nordic research, which explores the interconnections between discourses, policies and the implications for the daily lives of immigrant groups. The following section focuses on the meanings and possible implications of the challenge from migration/multiculturalism for the intersections between gender equality and ethnic diversity.

5.4 The Nordic gender equality paradox Feminist scholars usually agree that the Nordic countries, in spite of their differences, share basic characteristics that make it meaningful to include them in the same gender model. Comparative research often emphasises that the countries share basic characteristics: 1) a dual breadwinner model combined with a system of public childcare services and generous maternity- and parental leave, 2) a relative high number of women in the national political elite, and 3) a strong discourse about gender equality as both part of public policies and the private lives of citizens (see Bergqvist et al. 1999). Increased migration has raised concerns about new forms of inequalities between native born and foreign born women and has questioned the Nordic gender model’s ability to accommodate diversity among women. Immigrant women are often said to present a special challenge for Nordic governments because of their low labour market participation compared to women in the ethnic majorities, which for several decades have had record high employment rates within the OECD area. As an example, in Denmark the present LiberalConservative government has gradually tightened immigration laws using gendered issues like forced marriages to legitimise a stricter immigration control in relation to family members (Emerek and Bak Jørgensen 2009). Gender equality has thus come to play a key role in the dominant discourse about integration, and the perceived gender



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equality in ‘ethnic Danish families' is increasingly contrasted with the supposed patriarchal oppression of women in ‘migrant families' (Siim 2007; Siim and Skjeie 2008). Feminist scholars have criticised women-friendly welfare policies for being premised upon women's common social positions and interests (Borchorst and Siim 2002; 2008). Gender equality policies have been criticised for neglecting diversities between women from the white majority and the ethnic minorities, thus making alternative perspectives on gender and family relations invisible (los Reyes, Molino and Mulinari 2003; Langvasbråten 2008). Post-colonial theory has criticised the hegemonic trend in Nordic gender and ethnicity research, especially the (colonial) desire to know the ‘other' (Mulinari, Kaskinen, Irni and Tuori 2009) and produce a hegemonic picture of gender and femininity that makes power inequalities between the ‘white' majority and immigrant women invisible (de los Reyes, Molino and Mulinari 2003:31; Andreassen 2005). Postcolonial feminism has recently labelled Nordic nationalism ‘welfare state nationalism'. Feminist research has started to analyse inequalities between majority and ethnic minority groups in terms of power and influence. One central issue concerns the powers to define gender equality and feminism (Pristed and Thun 2010). The perceived conflicts between the dominant norms about gender equality and the cultural norms of immigrant families, including the diversity of family norms has recently become a central issue in feminist research (Bredal 2006; Siim 2008). Scholars have started to analyse the meanings and implications of the diverse Nordic welfare, migration/ integration and gender equality policies for immigrant and refugee women's lived citizenship. How should we assess and compare the national difference in gender equality policies towards immigrant women? For example, what about the differences between Swedish equality policies, which have generally been directed towards all women independent of their ethno-cultural background (Langvasbråten 2008), and Danish gender equality policies, which are targeted towards immigrant women, who are perceived to be oppressed by their culture and their religion? (Siim 2007) What strategy is more effective for empowering ethnic minority women in relation to employment and education? To sum up, immigration has increased inequalities among native and foreign born women and has challenged the Nordic welfare states’ self-understanding as the normative models for gender equality. Instead of Helga Hernes’ grand vision of a society ‘Where injustice on the basis of gender would be largely eliminated without an increase in other forms of inequality, such as among groups of women’ (1987:15) research has pointed towards the new inequalities among women. Siim and Skjeie (2008) propose that the new forms of inequalities among women represent a Nordic gender equality paradox between the white majority who are included in politics and society and ethnic minorities who are marginalised both in the labour market and in politics.

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5.5 Framings and regulations regarding headscarves in Nordic nations The purpose of this section is to look at framings and regulations of Muslim headscarves in the private and public arenas in more detail within the three Scandinavian countries.3 Denmark, Norway and Sweden have many similarities in terms of citizenship and none of them fit any of the classical citizenship models: the ethno-cultural model, the civic-assimilationist or republican model, and the multicultural model (Kilic, Saharso and Sauer 2008). One clear indication of differences in the countries’ migration policies is that Sweden is the only country that has adopted dual citizenship (in 2003) in order to strengthen integration. The countries also have different state-church relations since Sweden decided to separate state and Church (in 2001), while both Denmark and Norway have retained their state churches. In spite of these differences in citizenship policies, research has pointed out that all three countries have retained relatively accommodating approaches to political regulation of veiling in the public arena compared to other European countries (Kilic, Sauer and Saharso 2008). The first Danish and Norwegian headscarf-cases addressed the right of Muslim women to wear the hijab to work in private companies.4 They illustrate that there are important differences in the political and discursive opportunity structures of the two countries which have implications for Muslim women. In the Danish Føtex case the conflict was between an employee, Najla Ainuz, who was working as a fulltime bakery manager and had demanded the right to wear the headscarf to work for religious reasons, and Føtex, which is part of the concern, Dansk Supermarked, who dismissed her. The trade union, HK, argued on behalf of the employee that dismissal of the employee made her the victim of religious discrimination. The employer argued that they had the power to dismiss an employee who did not live up to the general dress code of the supermarket, which demanded that employees had to be ‘professionally and nicely dressed'. HK took the case to court twice. In 2003 the High Court ruled hat the company's dismissal of veiled employees was legal if the supermarket, in this case Føtex, had adopted a universal dress-code for all employees. The High Court reasoned that

3 Unfortunately I have not been able to find research about veiling in Finland. 4 There have been several legal court cases in Denmark. The first case was the MAGASIN case, where the department store was sentenced a fine of 10.000 Dkr for dismissing an employee with hijab. The second case was about TOM’s Chocolate Factory and this ended in reconciliation. The Danish trade union, HK, in Danish, Handel og Kontor, has led two cases, the ALDI-case, which also ended with reconciliation in 2003 where the employee AC was awarded 30.000 Dkr according to the Danish discrimination Law, and the FØTEX-case, which HK lost. The analysis of the Danish court cases is based upon empirical material and research findings from the VEIL-project (see Andreassen & Siim 2007; Andreassen, Lund & Siim 2009) and the Norwegian case is based on empirical material and research findings provided by Hege Skjeie (see Siim &d Skjeie 2008).



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the ban on headscarves must be formulated as part of a general ban on all visible political, religious and cultural symbols and must not be directed towards a specific religious group. Dansk Supermarked, which owns the chains Føtex, Netto and Bilka, had introduced clothing regulations in August 2000. These regulations prohibited veiling for employees who are in contact with costumers, i.e. employees working in the store room can be veiled. The clothing regulations also prohibited caps, including Jewish skullcaps (kippas); large Christian crosses; as well as visible piercings or unnatural hair colors. These clothing regulations had been written down and distributed among all Dansk Supermarked’s staff during the autumn of 2000, and from August 2000 onwards all new employees had been equipped with a pamphlet describing the clothing regulations. The judges therefore ruled that Føtex’s veil prohibition was not a question of discrimination but rather a question of clothing uniform. According to Najla Ainouz’s contract from March 1, 2001 (where she was hired fulltime in the bakery) she had signed an agreement with the stipulation that her employment included ‘the rules and duties described in the staff regulations’. This meant that, when signing her contract, Najla Ainouz also had accepted that she would observe the requirements proscribed in the staff regulations. In the clothing regulations from August 2000 it says: ‘In all areas where there is not a demand for a certain head covering, it is a part of our uniform [that] demands that employees do not wear headgear.’ This decision was appealed by the trade union who on behalf of the employee argued that the dismissal on religious grounds was a violation of the Danish Anti-discrimination Law. The verdict was appealed and the case was taken to the Supreme Court, which confirmed the decision in January 2005 (Andreassen and Siim 2007). The Norwegian cases had many similarities but the reasoning and outcome was different. Here individual cases of veil discrimination were brought before the Norwegian Equality Ombud but were not tried until 2004. The complaint by a number of employees that they were not allowed to wear a headscarf to work resulted in a decision by the Ombud that prohibitions of the veil in work places were in violation of the prohibition against religious discrimination. She added that it would also be an indirect form of gender discrimination, which violated the Gender Equality Act. In determining this, the Ombud compared such restrictions of Muslim headscarves to the contrary accommodating, uniform regulations within the military services (i.e. turbans). She reasoned that many Muslim women wear the veil because of religious reasons and situations could occur where they could not accept to work if they could not use the headscarf. A prohibition would thus entail a significant disadvantage for these women. In more recent decisions the Ombud has upheld this general line of reasoning. A ban of the veil was later tried both according to the Gender Equality Act and a new Act against Ethnic and Religious Discrimination, and found to be a violation on both prohibition grounds (Siim and Skjeie 2008). In the Danish case the main conflict was formulated as a conflict between two principles: Religious discrimination against the liberal principle that private

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employers' should have the power to decide without interference from the state. In the Føtex case the concern for religious rights founded in the Danish Constitution and European Human Rights Convention lost out, probably because the Danish Supermarket chain had adopted new clothing regulations which also forbade caps, including the Jewish kippa and large Christian crosses (in 2003). In the comparison of the two cases, Siim and Skjeie suggest that the Norwegian Ombud's argument is an example of an inclusionary framing, which takes the intersecting of gender with religion and culture into account in support of women’s right to wear the Muslim Headscarf to work by acknowledging that it is women who wear the veil (see Skjeie 2007; Siim and Skjeie 2008). It is inclusive, because it recognises the intersections of different inequality creating categories, and the potential negative consequences of these inequalities for creating equality, in diversity. What can explain the differences in the reasoning? The comparative analysis suggests that three factors may contribute to explain the different results: a) the pluralist religious tradition in Norway, which does not exist in Denmark, b) the difference between the Equality Ombud which is more sensitive to the arguments from political actors than the legal Court system, and finally c) the mobilisation of social and political actors in Norway, an example being the Muslim women organised in the MIRA-centre (Siim and Skjeie 2008:329-34). The third case is somewhat different because it addresses the Swedish approach to veiling in public educational institutions and includes conflicts over the burka/ niqab (see Lanefelt 2010). It refers to four different cases:5 1) The Burgården highschool case, where two female pupils wanted to attend classes dressed in a burka, 2) The Minerva elementary school where the school ordered a pupil to take off her veil on the school premises, 3) the third case concerns two students in the Swedish Institute of Education who wanted to attend classes dressed in niqab, and 4) the Västerort Adult High School case where a women who was not allowed to wear a niqab reported the school for discrimination. The Swedish Board of Education had the power to decide in the first two cases whereas the third university case was decided internally at Stockholm University. In the Burgården case the Board did sustain the school's decision to forbid wearing the burka for several reasons including pedagogical arguments, practical arguments and a freedom of religion argument. In the Minerva case the Board of Education went against the school's argument for a ban of the veil to allow the wearing of the veil in the specific school. The Board mentioned several justifications but according to Lanefelt the main reason is one of freedom of religion (Lanefelt 2010:6). The third

5 The description of the Swedish cases is based upon PhD Lily Lanefelt’s PhD-project, especially the arguments in the paper “Regulating the veil in Swedish Style: Tolerance and the Absence of Intersectionality in Public Reasoning on the Issue of Veil”, that was presented at the Second DEMDI conference, Oslo, 28-29, 2010.



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case, which was decided in the two students' favour, is the only instance where freedom of religion is not given as the reason for allowing the veiled girls to attend classes. Instead the justification refers to equal treatment and to discrimination, which should not occur in the University of Stockholm (SU). The last case is that of Västerort Adult High, where there was no official decision as of January 2010. A preliminary conclusion by the present DO6 was published on the official website of Swedish communities and county councils. This refers to two arguments: a) freedom of religion and b) equality of opportunity. The Swedish cases are different from the Danish and Norwegian cases since: a) they address demands to wear the burka and the niqab which are perceived to be more difficult to accommodate than the demand to wear the hijab, b) they concern public educational institutions and not private companies, and c) they were decided by different public authorities. Scholars have debated whether the Swedish policy on veiling should be characterised as ‘non-restrictive' or as ‘selective prohibition'? Lily Lanefelt takes issue with Kilic, Saharso and Sauer (2008) who have defined the Swedish policy towards the veil as belonging to the selective prohibition based on the decision of the Swedish board of education to support the decision to ban the burka in the Burgården high-school case. According to Lanefelt the Swedish policy on the veil should be categorised as a non-restrictive approach, because the Burgården case is an isolated case and demands for wearing the veil in educational institutions have not been rejected in the other three cases (Lanefelt 2009:4). Lanefelt argues that there is a primacy of freedom of religion argument in the Swedish cases and that this may have negative consequences for moral reasoning. It is a problem that this policy runs the risk of labelling women wearing the veil as being unreasonable since ‘a policy of the veil that bases the rational of non-exclusion of female veiling practices from education to the right of freedom of religion can tend to embrace the negative connotations that religion is assigned when contrasted with reason’ (Lanefelt 2010:14). This means that female veiling is assigned only one meaning as a religious symbol and thus the policy neglects the intersectionality of meanings that veiling represents both for women wearing the veil but also the different interpretations that second parties make of veiling traditions. Lanefelt’s analysis of the Swedish approach to veiling is interesting, because it focuses on the negative implications and unintended consequences of the de-politicisation of veiling, which fails to address veiling as a controversial normative issue for all parties involved. She suggests that an alternative reasoning would be to acknowledge the intersectional aspects of veiling practices. To sum up, I agree with Lanefelt that Sweden, like Denmark and Norway, can be categorised as having a relatively accommodating approach to veiling in the public arena. Differences in the political power structures characterised by strong anti-

6 DO: Diskrimineringsombudsmannen”, i.e. state representative in issues of discrimination

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Muslim political parties with big electoral support in Norway and Denmark has not (yet) changed this. In the future the accommodating Nordic approaches to veiling in the public arena may be changing, since there have recently been intense debates about prohibiting the veil for police officers (in Norway), about prohibiting the burka in the public arena (in Denmark) and a government decision to ban all political and religious symbols for legal judges (in Denmark) (Andreassen, Lund and Siim 2008). The analysis has shown that the variations in the reasoning in the three cases have different implications for veiled women as well as for third parties. In Denmark the liberal argument, which referred to the employer's right to determine clothing regulations, won against employees' religious freedom in the Føtex case, and it follows that the employers have the power to decide whether to accommodate demands for veiling by employees. This does not mean that employers use this right. There are indications that in practice the debate may have contributed positively to raise awareness of the issue among employers and employees and to stimulate new clothing regulations which can accommodate veiling. In Sweden the argument for religious freedom won, but the relatively depoliticised debate may have negative implications in practice because of the normative dilemmas that it does not talk about. The Norwegian Ombud institution was found to be the only example of intersectional reasoning, which formulated a link between direct religious discrimination with indirect gender discrimination explicitly addressing the fact that it is women wearing the veil who are discriminated against

5.6 Conclusion: Multiculturalism and gender equality - issues and strategies In the theoretical portion of this chapter, I have argued that the ‘turn to diversity’ opens new opportunities to rethink theories, concepts and models and address multiple inequalities and diversities, specifically in relation to gender, ethnicity and religion. Multicultural claims for accommodation of cultural and religious diversity and feminist claims to overcome gender inequality are often presented as competing equality principles, which need to be balanced. The growing feminist emphasis on intersectionality as a perspective on diversity is a response to this challenge to overcome unitary approaches. Arguably, political and social theory need to address multiple diversities and multiple inequalities and study how social categories, including gender, ethnicity and religion, intersect within and across nation states. Yuval-Davis’ approach to citizenship and politics of belonging is a promising model, which addresses intersecting inequalities at both the individual, structural and organisational levels and overcomes the nation state bias of previous citizenship models. Intersectionality has been used as a sophisticated analytical tool to understand how significant categories, notably gender and religion, are articulated in political and legal debates and also affect underlying notions of nationality. This



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approach concerns structural, institutional and discursive power relations and resources between the dominant majority and minority groups, and it may therefore be used and abused in political debates in ways that stigmatise and marginalise minority groups. Immigration represents new challenges for the Nordic welfare states and one of the central issues is connected to integration and accommodation of new forms of cultural and religious diversity in society. Immigration raises new research questions about the commonality and differences in the Nordic welfare, immigration and gender regimes. In spite of different approaches to migration, the integration and marginalisation of immigrant groups is perceived as a political problem in all the Nordic countries. Inequalities between native born and foreign born groups are growing and immigrant groups are not included on par with native citizens in the labour market, in politics and in society in general. The Scandinavian countries still fare comparatively well in relation to redistribution and gender equality, but immigration has increased social and political inequalities between native citizens and foreign born nationals, including inequalities among women. Feminist scholarship has analysed the tensions between the Nordic welfare and gender equality regime and immigration, and have identified similar problems connected to marginalisation and discrimination of immigrant women and to a lack of respect for cultural diversity. The studies indicate that there are limits to the Nordic approach to welfare and illustrate that the women-friendly social policies do not always include ethnic minority women. They have thus raised critical questions about the abilities of the Scandinavian welfare and gender regime to integrate immigrant groups and live up to their own promises of social and gender equality. Welfare, immigration and gender research need to study the tensions in social, integration and gender equality policies from the perspective of immigrant women. In spite of the differences in multicultural policies, each of the Nordic countries we have examined has problems with the integration of immigrant women into the labour market and into society more broadly conceived. None of these Scandinavian welfare states can therefore claim to live up to Helga Hernes’ vision of a society ‘where injustice on the basis of gender would be eliminated without an increase in other forms of inequalities, such as among groups of women’. The increased diversity and inequalities among women in Scandinavia represent a challenge to feminist research to be more self-reflexive in terms of who speaks for whom and who has the right to define what women-friendly social policies are or should be. Arguably, Scandinavian welfare and gender research needs to rethink the foundations of the welfare state and gender equality from the perspective of migration and diversity. The analysis of the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish headscarf debates and regulations was inspired by empirical findings from the VEIL-project. They demonstrate the balancing of different arguments for and against women’s demand for veiling in the private and public arena and indicate that the different reasoning may have unintended meanings and effects. The comparison between Denmark and

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Norway illustrates the different framings and regulations of Muslim headscarves in relation to the labour market. In this arena, the public rulings balanced arguments for religious freedom against employers’ authority to decide the dress-code of employees. In the Danish case the employer’s power to determine the dress-code won the case against the argument for religious freedom. In the Norwegian case the Equality Ombud argued that a ban on an employee’s demand for veiling would violate two intersecting principles: direct religious discrimination and indirect gender discrimination. The analysis of headscarf debates and regulations in the three Scandinavian countries thus illustrates the importance of the power to decide on the specific domain as well as the power to balance between conflicting principles, reasoning and interests of social and political actors. The Danish case represents a high degree of politisation around the headscarf issue and even when the employers won the legal argument the court cases may have contributed to raising awareness about the issue for Muslim women and employers. The Swedish case indicates that there may be unintended negative implications of a de-politicisation of the Muslim headscarf, if it is articulated solely as a religious issue and not as an intersectional issue. The Norwegian case suggests that there are positive implications of an intersectional approach to Muslim headscarves that is able to recognise the interrelations between gender and religious diversity. This articulation is premised on a multidimensional approach to equality, which interprets relations between gender, ethnicity/race, religion and nationality as multiple intersecting forms of discrimination, not as contradictory or competing equality claims, and is a promising democratic strategy. This chapter has suggested that it is a democratic challenge to negotiate the principles of equality with recognition of diversity and to develop strategies able to include religious and cultural minorities in Nordic societies on an equal par with the national majorities. Future research should compare potential barriers that need to be addressed by political institutions, discourses and gender equality policies in order to empower immigrant and minority women as equal citizens in the Nordic countries. Power relations are transformative and dynamic and migration research should discuss strategies and best practices for accommodating cultural and religious diversity, including the diversity of family values and gender equality norms.

References Andreassen, R. with B. Siim 2007. Country-report, Denmark. The report is written as part of the VEIL-project, “Values, Equality and Diversity in Liberal Democracies. Debates about Muslim Women’s Headscarves”, financed by the EC under the VI. Framework Programme 2006-2009. Andreassen, Rikke, Pedersen, Linda Lund and Birte Siim (2008). Cross National Comparisons Denmark, unpublished paper, September 2008. Banting, K. and W. Kymlicka. 2006. “Introduction.” Pp. 1-45 in Multiculturalism and the Welfare State, edited by K. Banting and W. Kymlicka. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

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Banting, K., R. Johnston, W. Kymlicka and S. Soroka. 2006. “Do multicultural policies erode the welfare state?” Pp. 49-91 in Multiculturalism and the Welfare State, edited by K. Banting and W. Kymlicka. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Beck, U. 2002. “The Cosmopolitan Society and its Enemies.” Theory, Culture & Society. 19(1-2): 17-44. Bellamy, R., D. Castiglione and E. Santoro (eds.). 2004. Lineages of European Citizenship: Rights, Belonging and Participation in Eleven Nation-States. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. Borchorst, A. and B. Siim. 2008. “The Women-Friendly Policies and State Feminism.” Feminist Theory. 9(2): 207-224. Borevi, K. 2010. “Sverige: Mångkulturalismens fagskepp I Norden.” Pp. 41-130 in Velferdens grenser (The Limits of Welfare), edited by G. Brochmann and A. Hagelund. Oslo, Denmark: Universitetsforlaget. Bredal, A. 2005. “Tackling Forced Marriages in Norway and Denmark: Between Women’s Rights and Immigration Control.” Pp. 332-353 in “Honour”: Crimes, Paradigms and Violence against Women, edited by L. Welchman and S. Hossain. London, UK: Zed Books. Brochmann, G. and A. Hagelund. 2005. Innvandringens Velferdspolitiske Konsekvenser. Copenhagen, Denmark: Nordisk kunnskapsstatus, Nordic Council of Ministers. __________. 2010. Velferdens grenser (The Limits of Welfare). Del 1: Velfærdsstat, Nasjon og Innvandring, & Del 5: En model med tre unntak? Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget. Christensen, A-D. and B. Siim. 2009. “Citizenship and Politics of Belonging – inclusionary and exclusionary framings of gender and ethnicity.” Pp. in Kvinder, Køn & Forskning. Special issue vol 2/3, 2010. De los Reyes, P., I. Molina and D. Mulinari. 2003. Maktens olika förklädnadar. Kømn, klasse og etnicitet i det post-koloniale Sverige. Stockholm: Atlas. Emerek, R. and M. Bak Jørgensen. 2009. Network on Socio-Economic Experts in the Non-Discrimination Field. Country Report 1 Denmark, unpublished Report, April 2009. Faist, T. 2007. “Introduction: The Shifting Boundaries of the Political” in T. Faist and P. Kivisto eds. Dual Citizenship in Global Perspective: From Unitary to Multiple Citizenship, Palgrave/ Macmillan. Gullestad, M. 2006. Plausible Prejudice: Everyday Practices and Social Images of Nation, Culture and Race. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget Hagelund, A. 2009. ”The future of the welfare state: paths of social policy innovation between constraints and opportunities”, unpublished paper, Urbino, 17-19. September, 2009. Hedetoft, U., B. Petersson and L. Sturfelt. 2006. Invandrare och integration I Danmark och Sverige, Göteborg- Stockholm: Makadam. Hadj-Abdou L., S. Rosenberger, S. Saharso and B. Siim. 2009. “The limits of populism. Accommodative headscarf policies in Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands”, in S. Rosenberger and B. Sauer (eds.). Politics, Religion and Gender: Regulating the Muslim Headscarf, Routledge. Jønsson, H. vad and K. Petersen. 2010. ”Danmark: den nationale velfærdsstat møder verden,”in Brochmann, Grete & Anniken Hagelund, Velferdens grenser (The Limits of Welfare). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, pp. 131-210. Kilic, S., S. Saharso and B. Sauer. 2008. Introduction: The VEIL: Debating Citizenship, Gender and Religious Diversity, Social Politics. International Studies in Gender, State and Society. Special Issue: The Veil: Debating Citizenship, Gender and Religious Diversity, No. 4, 2008 Koopmans R. and P. Statham. 2000. Challenging Immigration and Ethnic relations Politics: Comparative European Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kraus, P. 2009. “Complex Diversity”, Paper presented at the EUROSPHERE’s summer school, Tallin, Estonia. Kymlicka, W. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Kymlicka, W. and W. Norman (eds.). 2000. Citizenship in Diverse Societies. New York: Oxford University Press. Lanefelt, L. 2010. “Regulating the veil in Swedish-style: Tolerance and the Absence of Intersectionality in Public Reasoning on the Issue of Veil”, unpublished paper presented at the DEMDI conference, Oslo, 28-29 January. Langvasbråten, T. 2008.“A Scandinavian Model? — Gender Equality Policy and Multiculturalism in Sweden, Denmark and Norway 2000-2005” in Social Politics. International Studies of Gender, State and Society. Lombardo, E., P. Meier and M. Verloo (eds.). 2009. The Discursive Politics of Gender Equality, London: Routledge. Melby, K., A-B. Ravn and C. Carlsson-Wetterberg, (eds.). 2008. Gender Equality as a Perspective on Welfare: The Limits of Political Ambition. Policy Press. Modood, T. 2007. Multiculturalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Modood T., A. Triandafyllidou, and R. Zapata-Barrero (eds.). 2006. Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach, London: Routledge. Mulinari, D., S. Keskinen, S. Irni and S. Tuori. 2009. ”Introduction” in Post-colonialism and the Nordic Models of Welfare and Gender. Okin, S. M. with respondents, J. Cohen, M. Howard and M. Nussbaum. 1999. Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Phillips, A. 2008. Multiculturalism without Culture, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pristed Nielsen, H. 2009.“Islam: a dead end for female Immigrants in Denmark”, in G. Tibe Bonifacio (ed.) Gender, Religion, and Migration: Pathways of Integration, Amazone. Pristed Nielsen, H. and C. Thun. 2010. 'Multicultural feminism in Denmark and Norway?', in Kvinder, Køn og Forskning, vol 2/3. Siim, B. 2007. “The Challenge of Recognizing Diversity from the Perspective of Gender Equality – Dilemmas in Danish citizenship.” Critical Revue of International Social and Political Philosophy 10, no. 4: 491-512. __________. 2009. “Gender and Diversity in the European Public Sphere”, EUROSPHERE Working Paper Series, No. 17, March 2009. Siim, B. and H. Skjeie. 2008. ”Tracks, intersections and dead ends. Multicultural challenges to state feminism in Denmark and Norway,” Ethnicities vol. 8:3. Siim, B. and J. Squires. 2008. Contesting Citizenship. London: Routledge. Siim, B. and A. Borchorst. 2010. “The multicultural challenge to the Danish Welfare state — Social Politics, Equality and Regulating Families”, in J. Fink and Å. Lundqvist (eds). Changing Relations of Welfare. Families, Gender and Migration in Britain and Scandinavia. Squires, J. 2007. The New Politics of Gender Equality, Palgrave/Macmillan.SOU 2006: 37 Om velfärdens grenser och det vilkorade medborgerskapet, Pauline de los Reyes (ed). Stockholm: Statens offentliga utredningar. Togeby L., et al. 2003. Magt og Demokrati i Danmark – hovedresultater fra magtudredningen, Århus: Århus Universitet. Udlændinge- og integrationspolitikken i Danmark og udvalgte lande (2004).- Baggrundsrapport, Tænketanken om udfordringer for integrationsindsatsen i Danmark i samarbejde med Socialforskningsinstituttet, Ministeriet for Flygtninge, Indvandrere og Integration. Yuval-Davis, N. 1997. Gender and Nation. London: Sage. __________. 2006a. “Belonging and the politics of belonging”, Pattern of Prejudice, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 197-214. __________. 2006b. “Intersectionality and Feminist Politics”, European Journal of Women’s Studies, vol. 13, pp. 193-209. __________. 1997. Gender and Nation. London: Sage Publications.

Camilla Nordberg

6 Dynamics of Recognition: Minority Ethnic Access to Transformative Power in the Nordic Welfare State 6.1 Introduction Groups facing social injustice have rather successfully addressed issues of access to public institutions and policy-making, as well as to various welfare services. Hegemonic cultures and institutional practices themselves have, nevertheless, remained relatively uncontested. Newman and Clarke (2009) call for an increasing acknowledgment of the distinction between citizenship as expansive and citizenship as transformative, where the latter is concerned with challenging the social, political and cultural orders and the larger architectures of inequality and subordination. In this article I turn to the notion of citizenship as being closely linked to its political-institutional context and to human agency. I assume that we need to open up for topological analyses of the various ways in which minority ethnic agency is enacted in particular localities in order to explore the contestation and challenging of hegemonic power structures in contemporary societies. I am particularly concerned with the ways in which the political-institutional framework enables or constrains citizenship agency and, subsequently, access to transformative power. The research draws on the social category of Northern European Roma and Travellers, faced by a long history of oppression. It aims at highlighting the ways in which a legacy of misrecognition interlinks with certain patterns of participation in a certain cultural and political-institutional context. Empirically, it uses interview data from a study on Finnish Roma activists, contextualised with a discussion on politics targeted to Roma and Travellers in Sweden and Norway. The theoretical point of departure is the redistribution-recognition divide in citizenship, most notably Nancy Fraser’s two-dimensional conceptualisation of justice and her more recent emphasis on political representation as an additional dimension to those of cultural and economic disadvantage (Fraser 2008). Whereas the welfare state has been reasonably successful in reducing poverty and socioeconomic injustice at the level of social class, it is increasingly being debated whether minority ethnic groups are equally included in an ethos of egalitarianism (Brochmann and Hagelund 2012; Kivisto and Wahlbeck 2013; Kvist, Fritzell, Hvinden and Kangas 2012). This paper argues that a strengthening of the recognition paradigm of citizenship in the mature Nordic Welfare States is precondition for an all-citizens-encompassing, participatory egalitarianism. Firstly, I will outline the (mis)recognition paradigm of social justice and its transformative potential, that is, its relation to acts of citizenship by individuals and groups in their efforts to make change. Secondly, drawing on in-depth qualitative Roma activist interviews, © 2015 Camilla Nordberg This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.

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I emphasise the value of researching the lived citizenship of people when we want to understand of the complex nature of agency and subordination in contemporary welfare states. Finally, exploring policy-making targeted to Roma and Travellers in Finland, Sweden and Norway, I discuss the ways different trajectories of nationstate building have shaped differentiated political claims-making practices and outcomes for misrecognised groups.

6.2 Recognition of social injustice Nancy Fraser has, for two decades, worked on the development of a normative theory of justice. She initially departed from a dualist framework which allowed for analysing the position of subordinated groups with regard to the redistribution of material resources, as well as the recognition of difference. Her argument was that we need to acknowledge the intersection of recognition and redistribution in our analyses of social injustice (Fraser 1995). To focus on the counteraction of stigma is, for example, not enough as long as publicly raised stereotypes about unemployed ethnic minorities reflect an actual structural disadvantage. Ruth Lister has showed how the recognition paradigm is helpful for understanding the contemporary politics of poverty, usually associated with redistribution (Lister 2004; also Parekh 2004). Nevertheless, starting in the 1990s, there was a strong tendency towards a cultural turn in politics as well as in theoretical debates (Taylor 1994; Kymlicka 1995). The shift from a socio-economic to a cultural paradigm of justice has given rise to critique against a politics of recognition which sees group-specific justice claims primarily as self-realisation. Fraser was also critical to the ways in which the recognition paradigm was linked to identity politics. She subsequently suggested a distinction between affirmative and transformative approaches to a politics of recognition. While affirmative approaches seek to valorise devalued identities, transformative approaches seek to transform the symbolic order (Fraser 1995; see also Newman and Clarke 2009). Later Fraser more explicitly conceptualised her view as a ‘status’ model of recognition (Fraser 2000) and elaborated her thinking in exchanges with Axel Honneth, Iris Marion Young and Judith Butler (Fraser 1997; Young 1997; Butler 1998; Fraser and Honneth 2003). According to Fraser, recognition is to be understood as a normative concept referring to respect, social status and the absence of cultural domination. The lack of recognition is subsequently a systematic and institutionalised form of status subordination, constituting a form of oppression. Fraser calls for a ‘parity of participation’, recognising all social actors as full partners in social interaction, able to participate ‘as peers’ (Fraser 2003: 28). Fraser is very clear in her view that recognition is a response to social injustice and not to a generic human need. Nevertheless, different contexts and cases of subordination require different remedies



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to promote status equality and participatory parity. Some forms of misrecognition, related to denying the common humanity of social actors, require a universalist form of recognition, that people are ‘unburdened of excessive ascribed or constructed differences’. When misrecognition is about denying the distinctiveness of certain social actors, they may indeed need recognition of their unacknowledged differences. Social actors may also request a deconstruction of ‘the very terms in which attributed differences are currently elaborated’ (Fraser 2003: 45-47). Whereas a plurality of approaches needs to be developed and implemented in a politics of recognition, a focus on structural subordination will arguably always require an analytical gaze which acknowledges the importance of power and agency. Absence of cultural domination is essential for transformative citizenship, yet remains a passive rather than active commitment to power redistribution in the polity. The normative demand for absence of cultural domination thus needs to be accompanied by an active commitment to redistribution not solely of socio-economic goods but also of power relations.

6.3 Institutional and cultural constraints to agency The ways in which people effectively can participate in claims-making practices subsequently become fundamental for enhancing social change. Minority ethnic groups are not to be understood as objects of oppressive practices and structures, but as potentially active subjects engaging in an array of encounters with other social actors (Isin and Nielsen 2008). The focus on agency is arguably manifold. Critical welfare state researchers have brought attention to the current shift in welfare policy from a normative emphasis on structural equality to the objects or subjects of policies themselves. This shift has featured a stronger emphasis on notions of exclusion, inclusion, empowerment and social cohesion, i.e. to the individual (Kettunen 2011). As was discussed in the previous section, a politics of recognition should be seen as a response to systematic and institutionalised forms of inequality and injustice to be considered legitimate; agency and participation should then also be discussed in relation to inequalities of representation and voice rather than as an independent welfare policy aim per se. Iris Marion Young (2000) makes a normative argument about the democratic inclusion of people from a broad range of social positions in decision-making. She is critical to the fact that some proponents of deliberative democracy tend to privilege argumentative forms of communication, assuming order and consensus (Young 2000). In developing a democratic society, there is a need to attend to socially differentiated positions and perspectives in decision-making. Individuals have ‘particular knowledge that arises from experience in their social positions’. The inclusion and recognition of such knowledge is important ‘not only as a means of demonstrating equal respect and to ensure that all legitimate interests in the polity

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receive expression’, but also to motivate participants to transform their claims from expressions of self-interest to appeals to justice, as well as to maximise the ‘social knowledge available to a democratic public, such that citizens are more likely to make just and wise decisions’ (Young 2004: 25-26). Nevertheless, hegemonic cultures and institutions structure people’s possibilities to act as citizens. Young distinguishes exclusion from decision-making as external and/or internal exclusion. By external exclusion she refers to the lacking access to fora for decision-making, including political domination by the socially and economically powerful. By internal exclusion she refers to instances whereby others ignore, dismiss or patronise ones statements and expressions. Internal exclusion demonstrates how people ‘lack effective opportunity to influence the thinking of others even when they have access to fora and procedures of decisionmaking’ (Young 2000: 55). James Tully (2005) has also made a useful contribution to the understanding of different forms of exclusion from the public sphere. He shows how political exclusion and political assimilation work together to block processes of citizenisation in which citizens can deliberate freely over different shared and contested rules of recognition and distribution. With relations of exclusion Tully refers to ‘the various ways citizens are excluded from initiating and entering into practices of democratic negotiation…’ (Tully 2005: 214-215). With relations of assimilation Tully refers to subjects being ‘encouraged to participate in democratic practices of deliberation yet are constrained to deliberate in a particular way’ (Tully 2005: 213-214). If citizens wish to have their voice heard, they must act in compliance with the dominant practice of reasoning. That is, the emphasis on formal socio-political citizenship rights does not account for instances of internal exclusion from decision-making (Young 2000) or political assimilation (Tully 2005). Returning to Nancy Fraser, she initially saw her dual perspective on recognition and redistribution as also embodying the political dimension of social justice, asserting that the very aim of recognition claims is to ‘deinstitutionalise patterns of cultural value that impede parity of participation and to replace them with patterns that foster it’ (Fraser 2003: 30). In her later work, she started to ask herself about whether relations of representation in themselves can be unjust, outside the influence from misrecognition and maldistribution. Her concern is first and foremost the meta-level of political decision-making, the (nationally) bounded frames of decision-making structures, which leave certain poor and pariah groups outside of the possibilities to confront, usually, transnational injustices (Fraser 2005; 2008). The Roma constitute a visible example of an ethno-cultural minority with universal, global, experiences of oppression and persecution, yet with a strongly heterogeneous position as claimants in their respective localities.

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6.4 The local context of agency: The ‘universalist’ welfare state and its ethno-cultural others Notwithstanding the normative ambition of challenging the hegemony of the nation-state and its exclusionary decision-making practices, there is still a de facto reality of imperative nation-state institutions, which makes the state an important category of analysis (Bloemraad 2006; Favell 2010). The materialisation of social rights and the redistribution of resources are still predominantly enacted within this bounded unit. At the level of every-day life, a ‘re-nationalisation’ of politics is occurring in a Europe where populist political voices currently draw on primordial rhetoric of morality and the boundedness of national cultures. Simultaneously, global transfers of money, people and ideas, bring about new demands for analytical reinterpretations of social reality. Rather than using predefined understandings of the tenets of re-nationalisation, globalisation and trans-national agency, there is a call for a critical assessment of the actual transformation of the political-institutional framework the local level. In Northern Europe, the scholarly debate on a politics of recognition has been marked by its contextualisation within a ‘welfare state’ framework. The welfare states of this region have typically been portrayed as egalitarian, redistributive, universal and solidarity driven (Kildal and Kuhnle 2005; Greve 2007). However, researchers have begun to question whether the Nordic welfare states actually can fulfil their egalitarian ambitions and respond to the needs and rights of an increasingly diverse population (Kvist, Fritzell, Hvinden and Kangas 2012; Lister 2009; Siim 2013). Empirical studies of the link between a particular welfare regime, or particular welfare arrangements, and their actual implications for people with a migrant and minority ethnic background are, nevertheless, quite unusual. The very conceptualisation of the welfare state has also often been overlooked in the analyses of obstacles to equality and social justice for people with a migrant and minority ethnic background. Each welfare state has its own language and legacy of nation-building which impinges upon the ways in which migrants and minorities are structurally subordinated. We know that the migration issue has been a dividing policy line in the Nordic countries. Sweden and Denmark have, in particular, drifted in different directions, in spite of their similar welfare political structures (Brochmann and Hagelund 2012). Increasing fine-grained analyses of the lived citizenship and local practices of people are needed when we want to understand the complexity and consequences of ethno-cultural subordination in contemporary welfare states. While not supporting David Miller’s hierarchy of solidarities, that we have primary ethical obligations to co-nationals, it is a valid argument that: ‘Rather than dismissing nationality out of hand once we discover that national identities contain elements of myth, we should ask what part these myths play in building and sustaining nations. For it may not be rational to discard beliefs, even if they are, strictly speaking, false’ (Miller 1997: 36).

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6.5 Dynamics of Roma activist participatory encounters in Finnish society The second part of this contribution is based on empirical research on Roma activism in the Nordic welfare state, with a predominant focus on Finland. My normative argument is that transformative approaches to citizenship are fundamental if we want to move beyond an affirmative politics of recognition and enhance effective claims-making by systematically subordinated groups. In their efforts to challenge the hegemonic order the Roma risk facing different modes of political assimilation or exclusion from the public sphere (Young 2000; Tully 2005). The dynamics of such mechanisms will be discussed below. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with Roma activists, this contribution explores contemporary constraints of the political-institutional framework to transformative power for a minority ethnic group marked by a strong and continuous legacy of social injustice. The Finnish data is contextualised through a discussion on Roma and Traveller activism and state policy in Sweden and Norway. The analysis focuses on the ways in which Roma activists make sense of and account for their agency and participation in the Finnish public sphere. The data constitutes 17 in-depth interviews. Ten Roma activists were interviewed in 2003 and 2004, seven of which were re-interviewed in 2009. The participants are men and women of different ages and regional backgrounds. ‘Political activist’ is used in a broad sense referring to individuals engaged for example in various advisory boards, NGOs as well as in the mainstream or minority media. Due to the very small number of activist Roma in Finland, I have not included any descriptive information in the quotes (for more details, see Nordberg 2006a; 2007).1 Despite an increasingly active trans-national Roma movement, Finnish Roma activism has traditionally been featured by a seemingly tame civil society, strongly intertwined with state bureaucracy. Notwithstanding a continuous marginalisation and oppression of Roma, more radical claims for justice have rarely occurred in the public debate (Nordberg 2006a, 2006b). The Roma arrived in Finland via Sweden and from the east in the late 16th century. Since that time their position has been marked by disengagement, persecution and oppression - not different from the situation in most other countries (Hancock 1987; Fraser 1995). The late 19th Century era of nation-state building was preoccupied by the shaping of a moral and decent citizenry. The Roma were placed in work camps and their culture and language were generally the targets of strong assimilationist policies (Vehmas 1961; Grönfors 1977; Pulma 2006). National bard Zacharias Topelius included within the Finnish citizenry the Swedish-speakers,

1 Within a larger research project, studies were also conducted from a top-down perspective, analysing parliamentary and media debates on boundary-drawing related to Roma citizenship (Nordberg 2007; 2006b).



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Karelians, Lapps, Russians, Germans and the Norwegians, while explicitly excluding the Jews and the Roma (Häkkinen and Tervonen 2005: 8). Not until the 1960s with the general radicalisation of politics, did the harsh policies gradually begin to change. The housing situation was still alarming, authorities routinely took Roma children into custody and the Roma ‘lifestyle’ was still conceived as problematic. In society at large the Roma were typically seen as non-working and non-contributory, although they occupied significant positions in various ’dirty’ segments of the labour market (Nordberg 2010). The Roma nevertheless got their own representation in the Advisory Board for Gypsy Affairs (later: the Advisory Board for Romani Affairs), a result of increasing activism within the young Roma movement. The Advisory Board was established as an institution with members representing different Ministries and Roma NGOs. Over the years there has been an increasing share of Roma members and today they constitute half of the Board. Notwithstanding a comparatively large number of Roma NGOs, they have been organised around specific issues, such as the elderly, children and religion and none of them have been very successful in mobilising members more broadly. Roma NGOs are not particularly political nor have they to a large extent engaged with nonRoma political and welfare institutions or the dominant media. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health launched a new National Policy Programme on Roma in 2009 with the specific ambition of targeting participation and agency. The next section of the article uses interviews with Roma activists to highlight the ways in which activists acknowledge the hegemonic political-institutional framework in their claims for justice. I want to draw particular attention to the micro-level of Roma claims-making as articulated in research interviews and to the specific claims made by contemporary Roma Activists.

6.5.1 The rationales of political agency The interviewed Roma activists articulate demands for social justice within a redistributive paradigm, hyphenating issues of poverty, unemployment and interrupted educational paths. These concrete markers of a subordinated citizenship have been acknowledged by public authorities and policy-makers since the birth of the welfare state, in various initiatives to improve the position of Roma in Finnish society and to prevent social exclusion and marginalisation. Furthermore, and to a larger degree, the Roma bring attention to a paradigm of respect and recognition, and to a justice rationale.2 According to Roma activists, experiences of second class

2 A comparatively less accentuated focus on socio-economic claims-making in the interviews is not necessarily due to a lacking concern for redistributive issues. It can be interpreted as a desire to counteract earlier social problems based connotations to Roma identity (Nordberg 2006a).

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citizenship among the Roma people and a subsequent low self-esteem are seen as detrimental not only to the capacity to participate in the culture and the institutions of the dominant society, but also to the motivation to do so: The Roma really have that strong basic belief, like they do not really believe that they actually could have an impact on anything. It is like a kind of - and that is largely due to our history - distrust in others, in other than our own people. It lives on and is still effective. While today, starting in the 1990s, we see a breaking point, there is very little that actually has changed.

Parekh, in his argument for integrating a politics of redistribution with a politics of recognition, concludes that long-oppressed groups needs confidence, a sense of self-worth, to make change and escape their economic predicament (Parekh 2004: 206). Axel Honneth (1995; 2003) in particular, has brought attention to group-specific recognition as creating a basis for self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem, a dimension which is less strongly emphasised in Fraser’s (2003) work. The participants in the interview study are particularly concerned with the effects of a subordinated citizenship status on the agency of the group of young Roma who are not participating in the dominant society, neither in the Roma community. Some of our young people are really badly marginalised, involved in drug abuse and those things. And it is no longer about a sound Roma culture but they relate to some really ancient traditions and customs and confront the majority in a very aggressive and arrogant way. It seems to have increased during the last decade or so, like ‘this is the school of the gadje, it is not our school’. In that group where those bad things are happening, that is where they look for recognition. If one is not accepted in the dominant society…

People who do not have access, or do not prefer, to participate in established institutions or political fora usually find other ways to resist their subordination. Particularly socially excluded and ‘non-Finnishised’ Roma with weak access to dominant cultural codes have been closed out from participation. While many Roma would not even choose to participate in the different decision-making structures available, such as the Advisory Board, the consensualist institutional culture nevertheless narrows the potential scope of differentiated positions and perspectives (Young 2000), and, has become an obstacle to transformative power. A particular feature of Finnish civil society has been its close connection to public elite institutions (Stenius 1983). Previous research has identified a strong similarity in the language of claims used by Roma activists and that used by the majority background policy makers when making claims for social justice (Nordberg 2006b, 2007), even though the majority elite, substantially, has been almost exclusively concerned with issues of redistribution and not with recognition, belonging and emotional notions of citizenship. Potentially more radical, often young, grass-root activists are excluded from arenas of public negotiation. Some of the more critical activists also ask themselves



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whether the Roma NGOs are democratic and open enough to take young nonestablished Roma onboard: Can Roma organisations really attract the young? Very easily the middle-aged keep all the strings to themselves. On the other hand, this access to power, to all of us it is still quite new/.../ we have acquired a position /…/ Easily one thinks of oneself as more important than what would be necessary. Well, maybe we are not good enough in providing space for the young ones. But for us it is somehow easier as we have been around these circles and we speak the same language…

As the quote suggests, the institutionalised collaboration between Roma NGOs and authority actors has made it difficult to access power for people who do not ‘speak this same language’, subsequently increasing the hierarchy between elite activists and those who have not transgressed the ‘cultural and communicative codes’ (Armstrong 1982). Although Finnish rather than Romani is the mother tongue of Finnish Roma, the Finnish used by the Roma in every-day life differs from that of the majority grassroot activists. While similar linguistic barriers are familiar from political mobilisation more broadly, the language constitutes an additional challenge for the Roma. The Finnish spoken by the Roma differs from the majority Finnish in terms of phraseology, as well as sentence structure (e.g. Borin and Vuorela 1998): Well, I do think that while many Roma have lots of needs /…/ they do not necessarily bother to bring them up, because a so called ordinary Rom does not have the skills to justify things, to make a proper case about what it is all about, and the Roma identity is still really stigmatised.

The experience of not having access to an efficient voice with which to express one’s claims, has arguably been constraining for what Fraser (1997) calls a parity of participation. The group of activists are increasingly middle-class Roma with comparatively weaker connections to the every-day life of the most subordinated Roma citizens (see also Trehan 2009)3. The narrow political representation constitutes an escalating problem of legitimacy. One of the activists who has been working closely with Roma families at the grass-root level concludes that the remoteness of the elite activists from the grass-roots makes it less likely that they will identify ‘real issues’ and bring them forward in different political bodies: It really is a problem, like I know for instance how much racism and other form of abuse people experience here at the grass-root level, in their every-day lives. And then, when nobody does anything, takes things forward, they may never change.

3 Nidi Trehan (2009) has analysed the ways in which an ‘NGOization’ of rights discourses in Europe can act to silence grass-root voices in preference for elite voices.

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The Roma activists draw attention to the ways in which misrecognition in the form of status subordination has contributed to a three-fold mode of inefficient agency, with an elite being assimilated into the dominant structures of Finnish society, with the mass remaining outside public policy-making and with a growing sector resisting in a non-tolerated way. All these obstacles to transformative power relate, in various ways, to limits of the public sphere, something which will be further elaborated in the subsequent section.

6.5.2 The limits of the public sphere in Finland Institutional cultures and practices are constantly transforming, but the strong legacy of consensualism seems to be continuously effective within Finnish political institutions, not the least in majority-minority collaborations (Kettunen 2008).4 Finnish Roma activists in general valorise their close companionship with authorities, arguing that it is the only way to take things forward and to substantially get access to power and decision-making. When explicitly asked, activists strongly object to the idea of a more autonomous civil society: There is really no point in messing around on our own. When authority actors waken and we do things together, then it starts happening, then we can actually have an influence.

Suvi Keskinen (2009) has raised concern about the exclusive mechanisms of the welfare state, suggesting that a strong commitment to universality, similarity and an ‘implicit’ majority perspective, together with a consensual ethos, result in little space for discussion and questioning of nation-building in the Nordic countries. The mobilisation of nation-building rhetoric has been particularly evident in Finland due to the legacy of a young and vulnerable nation-state with a rather recent history of violent internal political conflict (Stenius 1983). In such rhetoric also the Roma minority has created its own space. We should not forget that the Finnish state /…/ has taken exceptionally good care of the Roma people. Regardless of all the prejudice and attitudes, we have created this independent country together. Strong values are coming from that and those values have always had an impact on decision-makers in their decisions. Finnish decision-makers have really had a positive attitude towards the Roma.

4 Pauli Kettunen (2008) has argued that compared to the other Nordic countries, it has been less legitimate in Finland to see the state as being ‘shaped and used as instrument according to changing political power relations’ (p. 5). Rather, politics in Finland has been assumed to put into force the agency of the state – ‘the instance defining and meeting national necessities’ (p. 6-7).



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Rogers Brubaker (2001) in his study of changing rhetoric on assimilation in France, Germany and the U.S, has argued that assimilation has been transformed from seeing immigrant populations as moldable, meltable objects to active subjects. Assimilation is then not something ‘done to persons, but rather something accomplished by them, not intentionally, but as an unintended consequence of myriad individual actions and choices in particular social, cultural, economic and political contexts’ (Brubaker 2001: 543). The case of the Roma in Finland illustrates how less than two decades of formal recognition has contributed to a fear of losing these newly broken grounds, limiting the scope of more radical struggle and negotiation. Contemporary Roma activists are generally the first generation to collaborate with public authorities and it has mostly been a beneficial partnership. During the last decades the position of the Roma has significantly improved, in a comparative perspective. Activists have, using Tully’s (2005) conceptualisation, been assimilated into a public sphere shaped by institutional consensualism and a broader communitarianist framework emphasising the common history and the values attached to the Finnish nation-building project.

6.6 State policy and Roma and Traveller mobilisation in Sweden and Norway With the emphasis of this contribution being on the social category of ‘Roma’, it is understood as encompassing the various groups identified and/or identifying themselves as Roma, Romani and Travellers in English. There are groups with different historical legacies and contemporary political trajectories in the different countries. Nonetheless, a common denominator has been the stigmatised and subordinated position within society at large. Social policies, and later the emerging welfare state, have strongly influenced policies and legislation on Roma and Travellers in all Nordic countries. In Finland, as well as in Sweden and Norway, the state set about its aim of exterminating Roma and/or Traveller culture, conceived as a threat to the social and moral order. In Sweden and Norway, policies have more clearly been targeted at vagrancy and poverty, due to the presence of ‘Travellers’. Policy-makers in Sweden and Norway have been preoccupied with placing different groups of Roma and Travellers in different social categories. Authority measures and policies have been adapted to these categorisations. ‘Swedish Gypsies’ arrived in Sweden around the turn of the 19th Century, During the 1940s they were divided into zigenare (Gypsies) and tattare (Tatars, Travellers), the latter being considered a social group formed by individuals who did different kinds of stigmatised and ‘dirty’ work (Montesino Parra, 2010). Travellers are also a distinctive group in Norway, organised as the Romani people (Halvorsen 2002), whereas a Travelling population has not been as visible in Finland. Another element of social categorisation policies implies the post

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World War II, differentiation of ‘foreign Gypsies’ from ‘national Gypsies’ in Sweden. (Montesino Parra, 2010). The final section of the paper shows that, in spite of the different histories and the different social categories of Roma and Travellers, the logic of assimilation has been similar in Finland, Sweden and Norway. Roma and Traveller policy has been part of a larger social policy project aiming at creating order, stability and homogeneisation through controlling vagrant and socio-culturally ‘deviant’ groups.

6.6.1 Social policy, education and subordinated agency in Sweden In Sweden, the Travelling population was the main target group of such sociopolitical inventions during the first half of the 20th Century. The aggressive politics culminated between the 1920s to 1940s when Travellers and other vagrant groups became the objects of harsh racial and sterilisation policy initiatives (Hazell 2002; Pulma 2006). Two decades later, after the Second World War, there was a shift in focus from the category of Travellers to Roma/Gypsies, which generated a specific and restricted field of state intervention. There was also a shift in policy emphasis from exclusion to inclusion, which was to be advanced through strategic assimilation targeted to the education of children and the young (Montesino Parra 2010). The majority driven Stiftelsen svensk zigenarmission (the ‘Gypsy Mission’) was a dominant actor, actively engaged in the maintenance of ‘camp schools’ for the Roma. The poor conditions in the Roma camps were a key incentive to the activation of Swedish Roma mobilisation (Montesino Parra 2002: 120-122). In the early 1950s, a government committee concluded that education and improved (settled) housing conditions had to be the main targets of Roma policy; there was a clear objective to assist the Roma in their transformation into decent working citizens who could adapt to modern life. Not until the 1960s did the housing conditions improve and the Roma moved from camp sites to city apartments. At this time a social welfare apparatus emerged, maintained by consultants and social workers working with individuals and families (Pulma 2006: 133, 224). Eventually, the Roma family Taikon gained increasing influence in promoting the rights of the Roma in Swedish society. As in Finland, with the leftist radicalisation of politics, Roma activists were increasingly involved in a movement aiming to improve their own situation. An important breaking point was the 1962 publication of the biographic novel Zigenerska (‘Gypsy woman’) by writer and activist Katarina Taikon. She and her sister Rosa managed to give a public voice and a face to the Roma. They nevertheless collaborated closely with majority Swedish activists through the Zigenarsamfundet (the ‘Gypsy association’). The level of organisation among the Roma in general remained weak. Together with Professor Arne Trankell, Katarina Taikon brought attention to the need to improve and intensify Roma adult education,



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bringing about a change in Roma policy from ethnologic assimilation to an ideology of social pedagogy (Montesino Parra 2002; 2010; Pulma, 2006: 138). Policy-makers and activists became aware of the importance of a recognised minority ethnic status. In the 1970s politicians and authorities ultimately declared that the focus should be on strengthening the voice of the Roma and involving them in decision-making (Pulma 2006: 145-149). Nevertheless, recent research indicates that Roma in Sweden are still subordinated to a second class citizenship. For example, a study by Rodell Olgac (2006) showed that Roma children still feel insecure in schools. Since more thorough research about the lived citizenship of the Roma is scarce, established presumptions about the Roma have remained influential for contemporary policy paradigms and grass-root perspectives have not been taken into account. Interventions are claimed to still be rooted in aims of adaptation and normalisation and social authorities have been accused of relying too much on a patronising stance with little result (see particularly Arnstberg 1998). Montesino Parra (2010) concludes that the Roma continuously have been categorised as a group requiring special measures based on special knowledge about the group. She is critical to the fact that the agency of the Roma themselves has been undermined in Swedish policy-making. The implementation of state policy is argued to have become a segment of employment predominantly for non-Roma during the decades of welfare state expansion.

6.6.2 Control, discipline and emerging resistance in Norway While education and social policy have been in the forefront of Swedish assimilation and integration policy, the Romani Traveller (Tater) population in Norway was more strongly affected by measures to discipline families and children by family based labour-colonies and aggressive attempts to take children into public custody. The aim was to force the Romani to settle. Sociologist Eilert Sundt set off these policies in the late 19th century, followed by the priest Jacob Walnum and later in the 1940s, child protection became the target of the Norsk Misjon blant hemlöse (‘the Norwegian Mission among the homeless’). The mission continued its activities until the 1980s (Minken 2009; Pettersen 2005). The Finnish equivalent to the Mission was predominantly concerned with taking Roma children away from their parents. The public image of the Romani as socially disabled, work-shy, irresponsible, non-reliable and criminals legitimised the assimilation policies of the Mission (Hvinden 2000). The policies culminated in legal measures to sterilise Romani women in the 1930s as part of the attempts to exterminate Romani culture and ways of living (Haave 2000). The assaults have gained substantial public attention during the last two decades, something which has mobilised individual Romani and Romani organisations around compensation claims targeted to the Norwegian state. Compensation has successfully been claimed for example for forced sterilisation and lost schooling opportunities,

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even though it has been challenging for the Romani to acquire the bureaucratic capital required by decision-making bodies. The Romani have also been critical to the fact that the number of successful compensation claims has been low due to strict demands on documentation (Halvorsen 2004: 42). Rune Halvorsen found similar difficulties facing the Romani people in mobilising the grassroots as in the Finnish and Swedish case. Contemporary activism has been constrained by distrust within the group and a lack of a common agenda for claims-making other than that of the demands for compensation. He concludes that ‘raising lawsuits against the state became an important part of the social mobilisation as this served to unite Travellers against the government’ (Halvorsen 2002: 222). Recent attempts to strengthen the recognition of Romani culture have been chiefly concerned with broadening the image of what it means to be a Romani but also with strengthening the Romani language (Halvorsen 2004: 47).

6.6.3 Diverging trajectories? With the emerging Nordic welfare state in the late 1970s, ethno-political civil society started to lose its meaning and minority politics became part of the state machinery. Welfare state expansion drew on the presumption that the state was responsible for the welfare of the individual and being an ethnic minority was increasingly seen as a status entitling one to particular social rights. At the same time the grass-root movement lost much of its importance. When minority ethnic status is too closely linked to socio-political benefits, it risks narrowing and weakening the potential for societal participation (Pulma 2006: 202). Having said that, Roma and Traveller activist claims-making has partly taken different turns in the different countries. Even though the Finnish Roma have not been victims of systematic sterilisation as in Sweden and Norway, there is enough evidence of oppressive policies and practices to legitimise activist mobilisation around compensation claims for previous injustices. While the homogenising and disciplinary logic of the welfare state has framed Roma policy-making in rather similar ways in all countries, activist claims-making is additionally conditioned by the relationship between civil society and the state. In Finland, the strong connection between Roma civil society and state institutions has made the Roma reluctant to make claims against the state (Nordberg 2006a). In Finland civil organisations became organic parts of the consolidation of the nation. The civil war in 1918 accentuated the divisions between social classes for decades and the ruling bourgeoisie elite had to reunite the nation by the creation of a loyal and unified civil society (Stenius 1983: 119-121). Finnish political-institutional culture has evolved out of a legacy of conflict and compromise with less socio-democratic dominance than in other Nordic countries. There has been a stronger emphasis on instrumental necessity rhetoric and a tendency to depoliticise the social policy agenda (see Kroll 2005, for an empirical analysis). While Swedish Social Democrats claimed

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a Third Way political position between Communism and Capitalism, Finland’s geopolitical situation between Sweden and the Soviet Union emphasised a pragmatic discourse on social reform drawing on rhetoric of functional needs (Kettunen 2006). In Norway, the Romani have not only made claims for compensation but also been more critical to various politics of recognition, including being granted minority status. Formal recognition was understood as a form of forced categorisation and as a disciplinary measure which could reinforce social differentiation (Halvorsen 2004: 56). Halvorsen concludes that the stigmatised position of the Romani people in Norway does not seem to generally have had a negative influence on the resistance towards state policies and initiatives, but the strong sense of vulnerability and shame has still, like in the Finnish case, weakened the mobilisation of a broader group of grass-root claimants (Halvorsen 2004: 106). The disciplinary and controlling elements embodied in the architecture of the Nordic welfare states have arguably contributed to the continuous injustice and oppression of Roma and Travellers. However, these structures do not independently explain the limited access to transformative power. The different trajectories of nationstate building have evidently shaped differentiated political claims-making practices and outcomes. Moreover, the joint experience of misrecognition has evidently been constraining for broader grass-root driven struggles for social justice.

6.7 Conclusion Social justice should not be reduced to the level of distribution nor recognition. This may be particularly true with regard to a welfare state setting that emphasises a minority policy closely linked to socio-economic rights and redistribution. Whereas non-recognition and maldistribution are interdependent and intertwined in the everyday experiences of subordinated groups, it can be concluded that for analytical reasons, it is valuable to separate recognition issues as a distinct category when addressing social injustices. A dualist approach helps us to identify spheres of status subordination which would not be evident in a unifying theory of justice (Fraser 2003). Within the recognition framework, public policies have in particular been concerned with a re-evaluation of the Romani language in the Nordic countries. Finnish Roma activist narratives showed how self-respect and self-esteem have been fundamental obstacles to ‘participatory parity’; the emotional or psychological dimension has not effectively been conceptualised as a social justice claim in welfare state policies. A lack of attention to the recognition paradigm in general and to the emotional dimension in particular, has simultaneously been the result of and reinforced a rather narrow ‘political expert’ agenda focusing on social rights, education, housing and welfare. It has been particularly detrimental to the fact that issues of contemporary racism have received fairly little attention. While redistributive issues are fundamental for the capacity to act as a citizen and are far from being solved, they are at least enacted in

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the public sphere. ‘Participatory parity’ in itself is not necessarily enough to influence institutionalised inequality and subordination and to address difficult structural problems such as racism. Enhancing transformative power for Roma and Traveller actors in the Nordic public spheres would require a political-institutional framework which allows for more radical forms of agency and is open to a broad range of actors, including grass-root actors, with different perspectives and experiences. In this chapter, I have discussed the structural obstacles to transformative citizenship among Nordic, particularly Finnish, Roma today, arguing that the public sphere has either assimilated or excluded the Roma from effective political claimsmaking that could challenge the social and symbolic order preventing the Roma from equal citizenship. Structural constraints to transformative agency have been activated in the dynamics between a disciplining and homogenising welfare state culture and consensualist political institutions. The Finnish Roma elite does hold a strong position in decision-making, or at least advice-making, on Roma issues, particularly through various public institutions such as the Advisory Board for Roma Affairs. Nonetheless, the participatory structures seem to have reproduced power-hierarchies between the elite actors and grass-roots. Class based social ordering is accentuated in a setting within which Roma elite activists collaborate in close companionship with state bureaucracy. There has been a substantial focus on the agency of citizens but not on the structural obstacles to agency. The Roma issue at large is developing into one of the most severe, trans-national human right issues in contemporary Europe. In many post-communist countries, the Roma minority has been trapped in a vicious circle of collective expulsion with enormous difficulties to live an ordinary life, to settle, work and educate oneself. Escaping from poverty and persecution, Roma are increasingly using their right to free movement (see e.g. Sigona & Vermeersch 2012; Nacu 2009). The Roma ‘beggars’ are on a daily basis reminding Europe about one of the momentous moral issues of contemporary times. Nancy Fraser (2005; 2008) subsequently raises a valid question of whether the nation-state is the right ‘frame’ for the political representation of issues which are global and universal as to their roots. There is a case for a need to develop plural strategies targeted to exclusionary mechanisms on the local as well as on the trans-national level. Acknowledgements: Funding for this study has been granted by the Academy of Finland project ‘Challenging Power: Equality, Diversity and the Integration of Ethnic and National Minorities in Finland' (2007-2010). The author is grateful for valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper by, among others, Peter Kraus, Reetta Toivanen, Niko Pyrhönen, Sanna Saksela, Östen Wahlbeck, Peter Holley and Peter Kivisto. The usual disclaimer applies.

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__________. 2006a. ‘Claiming citizenship: marginalised voices on identity and belonging’, Citizenship Studies, 10(5): 523-529. __________. 2006b. ‘Beyond representation: newspapers and citizenship participation in the case of a minority ethnic group’, Nordicom Review, 27(2): 87-104. Parekh, B. 2004. ‘Redistribution or Recognition?’ in May, S., Modood, T and Squires, J. (eds) Ethnicity, Nationalism and Minority Rights. Cambridge, UK: University Press, 199-213. Pettersen, K-S. 2005. Tatere og misjonen. Mangfold, makt og motstand. Oslo: NOVA. Pulma, P. 2006. Suljetut ovet: Pohjoismaiden romanipolitiikka 1500-luvulta EU-aikaan. Helsinki, Finland: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura. Rodell Olgac, C. 2006. Den romska minoriteten i majoritetssamhällets skola. Stockholm: HLS Förlag. Sigona, N. and Vermeersch, P. 2012. ‘Editors’ Introduction. The Roma in the New EU: Policies, Frames and Everyday Experiences’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 38(8): 1189-1193. Siim, B. 2013. ’Gender, diversity and migration: Challenges to Nordic welfare, gender politics and research’, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal 32(6): 615 – 628. Stenius, H. 1983. ‘Massorganisation och nationell sammanhållning’, Sosiologia 20(2): 112–124. Taylor, C. 1994. ‘The politics of recognition.’ in Gutmann, A. (ed) Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 25-73. Tully, J. 2005. ‘Exclusion and Assimilation: two forms of domination’, in Williams, M. and Macedo, S. (eds) Political Exclusion and Domination. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 191-229. Vehmas, R. 1961. Suomen Romaniväestön ryhmäluonne ja akkulturoituminen. Turku, Finland: Turun Yliopisto. Young, I. M. 2004. ‘Situated Knowledge and Democratic Discussions.’ in Andersen, J. and Siim, B. (eds) The Politics of Inclusion and Empowerment: Gender, Class and Citizenship. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 19-35. __________. 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press __________. 1997. ‘Unruly Categories: A Critique of Nancy Fraser’s Dual Systems Theory’, New left Review, 222: 147-160.

Reetta Toivanen

7 From Ignorance to Effective Inclusion: The Role of National Minorities within the Finnish Consensus Culture 7.1 Prologue I am holding in my hand a rather new booklet, a booklet1 aiming to advise teachers in schools and kindergarten on how to treat Roma children in a correct and culturesensitive manner. The book aims at reducing barriers of cross-cultural understanding, and making teachers familiar with the Finnish Roma culture. The authors of the booklet underline that the Roma in Finland do have a different culture than the majority. Knowing this culture makes it easier for the teacher to take special care of the Roma child so that she or he will feel comfortable in the kindergarten and school. On page four of the booklet it explains that in Roma families there is a very traditional gendered sharing of household-work: women take care of the kitchen and house and men earn the living. On page six taboo topics are listed and the reader is informed that such issues as sexuality and normal physical activities should not be spoken about. The Finnish Roma are also told to have a different understanding of time, and this should be known by teachers. The booklet goes through specific features of Roma culture and also covers the term of ‘avoiding’. When a Roma kills or hurts another Roma, the perpetrator’s family needs to avoid by all means the family of the victim: this is explained as a means to pay respect to the victims’ family and therefore, it is noted, for example that children of the two families cannot attend the same school or kindergarten. After the rather culturalising tone of the booklet, it then stresses on page eight that ‘Not all Roma children are bound by culture!’ What does this kind of booklet tell us about Finnish society, the inhibited understandings of differing cultures within and its approach towards minority cultures? This article discusses power relationships tied to the differing status positions of minority groups in a society in which decision-making is based on consensus: It addresses the ambivalence in a polity torn between a strong governmental (and societal) commitment to shared power in the name of equality and a weak inclination toward accommodation of diversity. The empirical material stems from research with two national minorities in Finland, the Sámi and the Roma. The main question concerns participation in the creation of the agenda behind decision-making processes: why certain interests (of minorities) do not find a way

1 Romanilapsen ja –nuoren elämää, tapoja ja kulttuuria, Ovet Auki –projekti, Kalevaprint 2007, available also: http://www2.luovi.fi/ovet_auki/documents/opettajille.pdf, accessed in August 2010. © 2015 Reetta Toivanen This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.



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to be articulated in the Finnish public sphere and whether the ‘closed' agenda of what can be articulated leads to non-participation among minority members on the one side and strengthens systemic and structural discrimination on the other side.

7.2 Equality mainstreaming or societal strait-jacket? In her article titled ‘The unfitting Sámi' (in orig. ‘sopimattomat saamelaiset'), Marjut Aikio (2006:21) argues that racism in Finland takes other forms than elsewhere. Reframing Erik Allardt's 40 year old statement, she goes on saying that in Finland any difference is in a systemic manner illicit and that Finnish society can only deal with a unity. According to her, that is the case, even though this unity is generally recognised as artificial. An artificial homogeneity is conceived as a convenient base for a conflict-free society. Similar arguments can be found in a book by Boxberg and Heikka (2009) who contend that there is not even a need for corruption in a country like Finland where the power relations are so clearly defined that power must not be articulated publicly. Where power is invisible, it works most effectively. According to Garland (interpreting Foucault) power refers to ‘the various forms of domination and subordination and the asymmetrical balance of forces which operate whenever and wherever social relations exist’ (Garland 1990:138). ‘[P]ower reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies, and inserts itself into their very actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes, and everyday lives’ (Foucault 1980:39). Steven Lukes (1974/2007) discusses in his groundbreaking book Power – A Radical View what he calls the third dimension of power or a radical view on power. This is the power ‘to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things’. Power is something that can be associated with a term that Pierre Bourdieu has called habitus: ‘the habitual, patterned ways of understanding, judging, and acting […]’, ‘[…] habitus is what gives the groups they compose consistency’ (Terdiman 1987:812-3). This habitus concept is useful when explaining that there are forms or modes of power, which silently formulate people to the norms of how they are to be, to behave, to feel without open or visible coercion forcing them to transform. To put it bluntly, habitus describes such forms of power which operate in the invisibility without causing any reasons to object to them. If there is such a thing as a consensual power sphere building on agreements by people guiding them without forcing them to follow certain life modes, the question then raised is how can we understand power’s ‘work’ in a society characterised by diversity? Lukes’ third dimension can be used to describe the situation of a society as a whole where ‘there can be no personalities that are formed independently of [power’s] effects’

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(Lukes 2007:92). This means that power affects all members of a society but the question in this contribution is how it affects people in different status positions. So what is then the case when we move to think about power in the context of minority-majority relationships in a democratic setting? My assumption is that power ‘works’ differently among those belonging to a titular nation and those who identify themselves as minority members. Bud Khleif (1993) introduced the concept ‘minoritised’ which he uses in order to illustrate that no one chooses to have less power. This means that nobody wants to belong to a minority if there are chances to have a position with more power. The word also implies the existence of an active element: somebody makes someone a minority, it is not in the nature of some people to be in a marginal position. They are marginalised and through the process of marginalisation, they become minoritised. The question is who marginalises ‘them’ and why, can obviously be answered with the aid of Michael Mann (1999) or Claus Offe (1996) who point to the democracy deficit which is inherent to any democratically formed polity. In its core, any democracy is constituted by undemocratic means but the level of democracy, meaning rule by people, can grow or deepen to include more and more people, ideas, and forms of power.2 According to this understanding, those who are excluded from a national identity building process and bestowed a position of being the ‘other’ in the setting of a generally accepted national unity, constitute the segment called minorities. There are different kinds of minorities and their relationship to the segment deemed the majority varies: whereas some are closer to power, others are heavily marginalised. This article discusses these varying power relationships tied to the differing status positions of constructed minority groups. As a case study, it addresses the ambivalence in the Finnish polity torn between a strong governmental (and societal) commitment to shared power in the name of equality and a weak inclination toward the accommodation of diversity. The empirical material stems from my long-term research with two national minorities in Finland, the Sámi and the Roma. The main question concerns participation in the creation of the agenda behind decision-making processes: why certain interests (of minorities) do not find a way to be articulated in the Finnish public sphere and whether the ‘closed' agenda of what can be articulated leads to non-participation among minority members on the one side and strengthens systemic and structural discrimination on the other side. What does it mean for minorities' perspectives when the context of identity politics is ambivalent: when the official policy stresses equality but the public atmosphere is hostile towards difference?

2 See here also Hannah Arendt on how new ideas and agendas get into the public sphere which is controlled by a certain segment of a society.



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7.3 Minorities in Finland For a long time, Finland has been described as one of the most homogenous countries of Europe (Saukkonen 2010). It was the low number of foreign-born persons living in Finland, which made this argument a truism. Also the selfimage of Finland continues to underline that Finland is a culturally and socially homogenous country where all difference is considered as an exception (Lepola 2000). Even if the self-image hasn’t changed, the population structure has: Between 1990 and 2009, the number of foreign citizens legally residing in Finland increased six-fold. The number of foreigners in Finland in the beginning of the 1990s was 26,300; today 155,700 foreign persons reside in Finland (Tanner 2011). According to the 2008 statistics, Finland had the seventh lowest proportion of foreign citizens in total population of all the EU-27 countries. One half of the foreign citizens live in the capital city area.3 The official state languages of Finland are Finnish with 4,836,183 speakers and Swedish with 289,951 (5.4 per cent) speakers.4 The official national minority languages include three different Sámi languages (Northern, Inari, and Skoltsámi), Romani, Tatar, Russian, Yiddish and Karelian.5 The constitution also guarantees rights to the speakers of each of the Sámi indigenous language which altogether have 1778 (0.03 per cent) registered mother tongue speakers. The number of Sámi people is estimated to be 9400 persons out of whom 60 per cent live outside the Sámi homeland territories in which Sámi enjoy specific rights.6 The Roma and other language groups’ rights are laid down in a separate law on language. The number of Roma speakers is estimated at 4000, which amounts to less than 50 per cent of the total Roma population in Finland (Granqvist 2006; Hedman 2008).

3 Statistics Finland: The population development of regions is going into different directions, published 30. September 2010. 4 The Swedish and Finnish language should enjoy similar protection which is further clarified by law. The municipalities in Finland can be either monolingual Finnish, monolingual Swedish, bilingual with a Finnish majority, bilingual with a Swedish majority or bilingual on voluntary decision. A municipality is designated bilingual if the population includes both Finnish and Swedish speakers and the minority comprises at least eight percent of the population or at least 3000 persons. A bilingual municipality is designated unilingual if the minority comprises less than 3000 persons and its proportion has decreased below six percent. Language Act 423/2003, chapter 1, sector 5. 5 The European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages and the Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention on National minorities consider also the other official language of Finland, namely Swedish, as de facto minority language. Finnish European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, http:// fiblul.huset.fi/etusivu. 6 Saamelaiskäräjät 2008, Koulutusraportti 1/2008 (The Education Report of the Sámi Parliament of Finland).

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Other languages account for 3.6 per cent of the population of Finland. There are now 30 different foreign-language groups with at least 1000 speakers in Finland.7 Over the last decade, due to immigration, the number of Russian speakers has increased to the largest foreign language in Finland with 51,683 speakers.8 The ethnic composition follows the lines of language communities. In 1995, the Sámi as an indigenous people secured a constitutional reform for cultural autonomy in their home region.9 90 per cent of the land in the Sámi homeland area is owned by the state: the constant extractive industries, notably mining and forestry, have created a situation in which one cannot gain a livelihood with the traditional practices of reindeer herding and fishing. At present 70 per cent of the Sámi children aged 11-24 live outside the Sámi territory and lack education in their mother tongue (Saamelaiskäräjät 2009). The Roma children face several difficulties starting with access to education and continuing with racism. 70 per cent of the Roma still value highly their own mother tongue, but at the moment only 8.5 per cent of Roma children enjoy the right to mother tongue teaching provided by the law (Hedman 2008). Meanwhile, according to the Finnish Association of Russian-Speaking Organisations FARO, Russian speakers, very often due to discrimination, avoid using Russian in public places. There are also 10,647 Somali speakers in Finland who, along with others who have a differing appearance, face racism both at work and in public. The Non-Discrimination Act was adopted in Finland in 2004.10 Its material scope is wide and it covers several grounds of discrimination: age, ethnic or national origin, nationality, language, religion, belief, opinion, health, disability, sexual orientation or other personal characteristics. Different governmental bodies monitor the realisation of that law: The Ombudsman for Minorities (ethnic origin) supported by the Advisory Body for Minority Affairs, the Discrimination Board, the Parliamentary Ombudsman and Chancellor of Justice, the Ombudsman for Equality (sex, gender and gender identity), the Ombudsman for Children and the Sámi Parliament. Discrimination

7 Statistics Finland: Review of the population structure of Finland 2009, published on 30. September 2010, http://www.stat.fi/til/vaerak/2009/01/vaerak_2009_01_2010-09-30_kat_001_en.html, accessed in February 2011. 8 Finland has a traditional ‘old’ Russian minority of ca. 3000 persons which enjoys special protection. Finland has made a distinction between the Old Russians and the New Russians. For instance, Finland has considered that the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities de facto covers the former but not the latter group. 9 The section 121 of the constitution says: ‘In their native region, the Sami have linguistic and cultural self-government, as provided by an Act.’ The Act on the Sami Parliament was enacted on 17.07.1995, last amended 30.12.2002, (974/1995), http://www.finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/1995/en19950974. 10 Yhdenvertaisuuslaki / Non-discrimination Act 20.01.2004/21, entered into force 01.02.2004, last amended 20.02.2009/84. Translated with amendments until January 2010, http://www.finlex.fi/en/ laki/kaannokset/2004/en20040021.pdf, last visited February 2011.



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in the field of employment is monitored by several labour protection districts. In addition to the Advisory Board for Minority Affairs, there are also Advisory Boards for Sámi Affairs, for Ethnic Relations, Romani Affairs, Disability11, Rehabilitation Affairs, Youth Affairs and Ageing and Pensioners’s Affairs.

7.4 Finnish commitment to equality and the practice of ignorance The Finnish ministries, municipalities and towns follow a horizontal approach that addresses discrimination on the grounds of ethnic origin, age, language, religion or belief, disability, sexual orientation, and multiple discriminations (Aaltonen, Joronen and Villa 2009). This horizontal approach12 is tangible in the Finnish revised Non-Discrimination Act, which puts the principle of mainstreaming all fields of public administration in its centre, and applies non-discrimination policies to all fields of societal life.13 The primary mainstreaming tools consist of developing non-discrimination programmes for different authorities, the public sector and private sector, awareness raising, education and developing methods of detecting discrimination (Mahler, Mihr and Toivanen 2009). It has been argued that when nondiscrimination and mainstreaming are underlying principles they can, especially in such a consensual society as Finland, be ignored easily (Mahler 2009). It is important to remember that even in the 1980s, human rights was a ‘non-issue’ due to the political circumstances entailed by Finland’s close and complicated relationship with the Soviet Union.14 Human rights as a concept was interpreted in a socialist manner as a political tool of the ‘West’. After Finland joined the Council of Europe in 1991 and the European Union in 1995, human rights has become a popular concept: the commitment to human rights standards can be found in many policy papers and governmental proposals. The commitment to human rights and non-discrimination are today found in almost every single Finnish policy paper or educational plan. For example, on the internet page of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs it says: ‘(…) Finland belongs to a value community, which is based on democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights. One of the purposes of Finland’s foreign policy

11 The correct name of the institution dealing with concerns of disabled is National Council on Disability. 12 Horizontal approach means that the government opted for a broad legislative approach rather than a specific law. The main tool of combating discrimination according the horizontal approach is in the mainstreaming of human rights provisions. Finland has since the adoption of the Non-discrimination Act, followed the principle of mainstreaming in all fields of administration. 13 Equality and non-discrimination: Definitions and Concepts, see www.equality.fi, accessed in May 2010. 14 On the development of human rights law and politics in Finland, see i.e., Scheinin 1989.

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is to also emphasise the importance of these values internationally.’15 The new core curriculum is introduced by the National Board of Education with the emphasis on ‘(Its) underlying values of basic education are human rights, equality, democracy’.16 According to recent polls, Finland indeed reveals an ambivalent picture of the nation. When on the one hand Finnish people value high levels of equality and they see it as one of the key markers of Finnish society,17 the attitudes of Finnish people towards foreigners and all other minorities have grown more rigid over the last decade (Jaakkola 2009). According to Eurobarometer 296,18 15 per cent of the population in Finland has experienced discrimination or harassment during the last year. Numerically most discrimination was experienced according to age and sex, whereas relatively most discrimination was experienced by members of ethnic groups. A larger group has witnessed discrimination (30 per cent) than report to have been subjected to it. 65 per cent of Finnish people felt that discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity is normal or very normal and ethnic discrimination was considered as the most common form of discriminatory behavior. Regarding causes of discrimination, 49 per cent believed that sexual orientation caused discrimination, 45 per cent attributed discrimination to disability and 43 per cent thought that age caused discrimination. Only 27 per cent thought that religion and 25 per cent that gender leads to discrimination. In 2008 the results of another Eurobarometer19 dealing with discrimination were published. Here Finnish people reported that they had experienced discrimination on the grounds of age and ethnicity (21 per cent), disability (17 per cent), religion or belief (11 per cent) and sexual orientation (7 per cent), with 21 per cent reporting multiple sources of discrimination. There is, however, very little litigation involving racist crimes and discrimination compared to the amount of potential cases, in comparison to these percentages. The major problem is that in Finland, reporting the case to the police, an ombudsman or to a lawyer (or in the case of discrimination at work to the occupational safety and health representative or a union representative) in order to file a lawsuit against the perpetrator, is exceedingly difficult for

15 On Finlands foreign and security policy: http://formin.finland.fi/public/default.aspx?nodeid=322 80&contentlan=2&culture=en-US, accessed in February 2011. 16 Finnish National Board of Education: New Core Curricula, http://www.oph.fi/english/sources_ of_information/articles_and_presentations/101/new_national_core_curricula, accessed in February 2011. 17 Suomen Gallup: Suomalaiset väheksyvät poliittisia oikeuksiaan (Finns downgrade their political rights). Research by the Finnish Gallup for national Broadcasting Company YLE, published 6.12.2007, see http://yle.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/2007/12/gallup_suomalaiset_vaheksyvat_poliittisia_oikeuksiaan_259633.html, accessed in May 2010. 18 Discrimination in the European Union. Perceptions, Experiences and Attitudes. Special Eurobarometer 296. 19 Discrimination in the European Union. Analytical report. Flash Eurobarometer 232.



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people who are by definition marginalised (Aaltonen, Joronen and Villa 2008:39). For example, the Office of the Ombudsman for Minorities tackled 737 cases of potential discrimination in the year 2007, but the police received only 47 suspected discrimination crime cases (ibid p. 36; Vähemmistövaltuutetun vuosikertomus 2007). Another problem is that the recognition of racism and discrimination is exceedingly difficult for members of a majority who do not want to challenge the image of the country as a harmonious space. This is linked to the fact that forbidding discrimination (litigation on various grounds of discrimination) has been less attractive in Finnish society than giving policy advice on equality (Aaltonen, Joronen and Villa 2009). Finnish people do know their rights better than many other citizens of the EU, but the hurdle of bringing cases to court is high: discrimination cases are a particular rarity for Finnish judges (ibid). The inactivity to evoke minority rights and anti-discrimination law can be at least partly explained by the lack of human rights education in Finland: the majority population neither knows and recognises difference nor understands the reasons for differential treatment (Toivanen 2007). The Finnish state and the municipal authorities view human rights and nondiscrimination activities positively but they have taken a passive stand (Aaltonen, Joronen and Villa 2009:15). The longer that authorities remain inactive, the more invisible difference is at stake: Gender, sexual minorities, religious groups or the Sámi do not seem to require non-discrimination action. When it comes to visible phenomena such as disability, race and immigration, authorities are more prepared for active policies. The common attitude among authorities towards minorities, often implicit, but sometimes expressed explicitly, is that minorities should not complain because the state is doing everything possible to enhance their situation. For example, in the Finnish Human Rights Forum 2009, the Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb was visibly upset by the claim of some people from the audience that the freedom of speech is regularly infringed in Finland. He said: ‘But really, do you know anybody in Finland who could not say whatever they wanted in this country?’20 Finland has strived to become ranked as a model country for minority treatment. The power hegemony is tangible in the way in which the government engages in international arenas in the development of minority protection. The rights of minorities are also stipulated in the reformed constitution of 1999. The belief among those holding power to the just regulation and shared power is very strong and the myth of the equal society is as strong as the belief in it. Because the majority of Finns, including many who are in a marginalised position, accept as

20 Personal notes 01.10.2009. Human Rights Forum is organised by the Finnish League for Human Rights to address human rights in Finland. The event is popular for Members of Parliament who all can show off their commitment to human rights there.

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true that societal peace can be best maintained by believing in the general shared commitment to equality, bringing up themes which would challenge this view is fraught with difficulty. Finland is leading the European statistics on bullying in the workplace, the number being twice as high than the European average21 and there are reports underlining the situation that in Finland people try not to express difference or differing opinions in order to maintain the so-called ‘societal peace’ or an image of such (Vartia et al. 2008). If you belong to a group that has become minoritised, whether sexual and gender minorities, visible immigrants or refugees or national minorities, both institutional and individual power relationships look different than the perspective of people belonging to the ‘mainstream’, majority population. In the following I will tackle these challenges of addressing power in a consensual society with a rather short history of transparent democratic structures by using the examples of two different minorities, the Roma and the Sámi.

7.5 The Sami and the Roma in Finland: Two unlike minority populations In this section, I will use the case studies of the Finnish Roma minority22 and those Sámi indigenous people who live in the Finnish area of Sápmi23 to illustrate something that could, according to Lukes (2005), be called invisible power. Invisibility means here, that power takes such forms that it does not need to be openly executed but it is hidden in structures of society and influences the self-perception and strategies of people. We could speak here also about structural or systemic discrimination as the official names go. I however, think that using the term discrimination here would distract from the situation where the intent to discriminate is not obvious, not even to those with discriminatory attitudes and behaviour. The act of discrimination is so tightly ingrained within normal thinking and behaviour that people who are discriminated against may not be aware of it.

21 YLE uutiset, Suomi on työpaikkakiusaamisen ykkösmaa (Finland is the leading country in bullying at work), 22.08.2008, http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/2008/09/suomi_on_tyopaikkakiusaamisen_karkimaa_320619.html, accessed in February 2011. 22 It is estimated that out of 20 million Roma people, 10 million live in Europe. Whereas the Finnish Roma community is small in numbers, they have played a crucial role in establishing European Roma organisations (such as the European Forum for Roma and Travellers under the auspices of the Council of Europe) which struggle for human rights issues for Roma. 23 Altogether ca. 100,000 Sámi people reside in four Northern countries, Norway (70,000), Sweden (18,000), Finland (10,000) and Russia (2000). They maintain institutions and organisations, which operate across borders and actively take part in international indigenous peoples’ human rights activities, e.g. through the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues.



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7.5.1 Difference rights for Sámi vs. sameness rights for Roma? The Roma and Sámi are very different ethnic groups in Finland, whether one looks at their legal standing, self-image or cultural expression.24 I have chosen these examples for several reasons. Firstly, because they play different roles in the Finnish public sphere and secondly because they claim different types of recognition and rights: the Sámi are officially recognised as the indigenous people of Finland and the government has tied itself to international agreements and national law to protect their traditional way of life. The Finnish Constitution was reformed in 1995 to include fundamental rights for Sámi people to maintain and develop their culture and language (Finnish Law 969/95). In the same reform, the government committed itself to ‘secure the realisation of fundamental rights and human rights'. The aim of these changes was to ‘guarantee the maintenance of the distinctive Sámi culture' (Government's Bill to Parliament 309/93). The concept of culture was interpreted to include the traditional Sámi livelihoods such as fishing, hunting and reindeer herding (ibid, p. 65). The Sámi Parliament, an elected body, was foreseen as the institution, which would develop and implement the right of Sámi people to promote cultural autonomy. Article 1 of The Act on the Sámi Parliament stipulates that ‘the Sámi, as an indigenous people, have a linguistic and cultural autonomy in the Sámi homeland' (Finnish Law 974/1995). This acknowledgment is based on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 (UN 1966a) and its article 27 protecting minorities25 as well as on existing international law on the rights of indigenous peoples.26 The Sámi claim these rights and stress the importance of indigenous autonomy (including the right to continue with traditional ways of livelihood). They have a rather strong political institution, the Sámi Parliament, representing the interests of the whole group.27 The Sámi Parliament has in its statements made clear that it strives for recognition of Sámi as a distinct people and claims the right to be treated differently, according the specific needs of Sámi people.

24 It should be noted, that whereas Sámi can rather easily follow the assimilation strategy and privately choose to become a non-Sámi (for whatever reasons); this is not similarly possible for many Roma who often have a phenotype differing from the Finns. 25 However, the Finnish government has refused to acknowledge Sámi as a people in the sense of article 1 of the same convention in fear that this recognition would automatically entitle them the right to self-determination in issues concerning natural resources. The president of the Finnish Sámi Parliament, Klemetti Näkkäläjärvi (2009), criticised heavily the Government and said that ‘[t]he opinion of the Finnish Government reflects a deplorable nationalistic tradition based on the idea of one people in one state.’ 26 Such as the International Labour Organization’s convention 169 from the year 1989. Finland has, however only signed this convention but not been ‘able’ to ratify. I will return to this debate later in this article. 27 Even though it should of course be said that the organisation is by no means accepted by all Sámi as ‘the’ legitimate representative.

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The Roma are recognised as a language minority in the Finnish Constitution (731/1999, Article 17) next to the Sámi and other language minorities as one of the groups to be protected under the minority rights clauses. Finland has acknowledged the status of the Roma as a national minority, notably in the explanation to the Framework Convention on National Minorities (Council of Europe 1995; Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2010). The Finnish Romani Forum was established under the premises of the Council of Europe's European Forum for Roma and Travellers28 but until today none of the bigger Roma organisations have joined the envisioned umbrella organisation due to internal conflicts and competition over cooperation.29 Otherwise, the Roma are represented in the governmental structures through the Advisory Body for Roma Affairs (RONK) and have their own centre at the National Board of Education for Roma education matters. Also, the RONK and the Finnish Romani Forum can be regarded as organisations which are motivated by majority interests to get Roma representation ‘settled’, to find a body ‘to talk to’. In addition there are several Roma NGOs active in different societal and cultural fields in Finland, especially ones motivated by religious grounds. The Roma underline the need to reach standards of living similar to the majority population; therefore it can be reasonably argued that they claim sameness rights, rights for equal opportunity (whereas Sámi ask for different treatment). The main problem for the Roma is a deeply rooted socio-economic disadvantage caused by discrimination and intolerance towards the Roma as an ethnically separated group. They are much less inclined to claim cultural and language rights as opposed to claims related to economic and social inclusion.30

7.5.2 Defining minority identity in a majority context The official definition of who can claim Sámi identity follows linguistic criteria even though no active language knowledge is required. Section 3 of the Act on the Sámi Parliament defines that a Sámi as a person who considers him or herself a Sámi, provided that this person has learnt Sámi as his or her first language, or has at least one parent or grandparent whose first language is Sámi; and is a descendant of a person who has been entered into the population register as mountain, forest or fishing Lapp, or at least one of the parents has or could have been registered as an elector for an election to the Sámi Delegation or the Sámi Parliament (Finnish Law 974/95). It is the Finnish law which defines who can belong to the Sámi community

28 http://www.ertf.org, last accessed in May 2010. 29 See the list of smaller local member organisations: http://www.romanifoorumi.fi/index. php?page=jaesenjaerjestoet , last accessed in May 2010. 30 See also Nordberg in this publication.



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and even though this has been challenged by such persons who do not fulfil the criteria or cannot prove that they fulfil it, it has remained unchanged. The Roma identification is more a question of heritage and blood relations. For Roma, whose language was until the 1980s (and for some elderly especially still today) a secret language, there is very little information about the level of their language skills, which definitely do not delineate the Roma identity (Hedman 2009b). The number of Roma speakers in Finland is estimated at 4000 (less than 50 per cent of the Roma in Finland) (Hedman 2008; Granqvist 2006). This number contains both fluent and much more passive speakers. Numerically the two minorities reach similar numbers: there is no official statistics but the Sámi constitute a group of around 9000 persons and the three different Sámi language communities (the Northern Sámi, Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi speakers) have altogether 1778 (0.03 per cent) mother tongue speakers.31 The Sámi homelands are in the northernmost part of Finland and even though 70 per cent of the Sámi children live outside the homeland, their rights are most-effectively protected only in the Sámi home territory. Meanwhile, 10,000 Roma are scattered throughout the country and some 3000 of them emigrated in the 1960s and 70s to work and live in Sweden. The protection of the Roma is equally challenging in every corner of the country.

7.5.3 The public sphere as a hegemonic setting co-defines minoritisation It might be easy to conclude that these two national minorities do not share anything in common, but in fact they do: Both are developing their own strategies to cope with Finnish majority rule and have to deal with the fact that their ‘own interests' cannot enter the Finnish public sphere without a certain kind of cultural translation which is, in its deepest meaning, a political translation of their own group interests to a language which is understood by the majority public. The Finnish majority has control over the framework and premises for Sámi and Roma identity claims and sets the limits regarding what they can ask for. The discrepancy is between what the Finnish government says it is doing in the field of minority rights with the reality of how these groups are treated.32 A prime example about the difficulty of harmonising the self-image as a minority rights friendly country is the question of the settling of rights of the Sámi people to natural resources and livelihoods. Another example is the failure to guarantee education of Roma people. Both these examples testify, as it should become obvious

31 Statistics Finland > Population > languages, of 27.3.2009. 32 See e.g. for the legal sphere the concluding observation by the Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention on National Minorities which stress the incredible discrepancy between laws on papers and legal action in Finland, under http://formin.finland.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=67435, accessed in May 2010.

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in the next section, about the unwillingness of the Finnish state to accept the specific demands of minorities and to recognise their needs for differential treatment.

7.6 Sámi and the denial of the right to their own culture The Sámi homelands are located in Lapland, the northernmost part of Europe in the area of the Norwegian provinces of Finmark, Tromsø, part of Nordland, the northernmost part of Sweden and Finland, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. About 45,000 Norwegian, 16,000 Swedish, 10,000 Finnish and 2000 Russian citizens are Sámi. The number of people who identify as Sámi has grown during the last decade and the trend is presently continuing (Toivanen 2003:205). The Sámi people are recognised as national minorities in all three Nordic countries.33 There are nine living, yet comparatively very small, Sámi languages. Northern Sámi has the most speakers, and because it is spoken in Sweden, Norway, and Finland, and it has gained the status of the Sámi lingua franca. In Finland, in addition to Northern Sámi, Skolt and Inari Sámi are official languages. Even in their traditional homelands, the Sámi constitute a minority, and this was already the case at the beginning of the twentieth century. In Finland, Sámi history is full of conflicts with the majority nation. Not only have they been marginalised in every manner of life through law and order, be it laws regulating reindeer herding, fishing or education, but also in the socio-psychological sphere of creating ‘the other' against which Finnish identity could be constructed. The national romantic author, Zacharias Topelius (1943; orig. 1875) describes the Sámi, in his book Our Land (previously read by every pupil at elementary school level), as ‘naïve, dirty, short, clumsy forest dwellers who would be jealous, foxy, drunk and unable for reasonable cooperation'.34 Denying that the Sámi could be a rational people with their own history has well served the nationalist interests of the titular nations in all four countries. Also, the claim that the Sámi would not have any understanding about ownership — as Karl Nickul (1984:48) said: ‘Sámi were believed to have a similar relationship to land as to water and air' — has for decades legitimated the fact that the Sámi home lands were occupied without compensation by the Nordic states.

33 In the Finnish Constitution, Section 17 (3) and in the Norwegian Constitution, Section 110 (a). The Swedish Constitution does not contain a section on Sámi but apparently the new proposal would include the protection of Sámi as an indigenous people, see http://www.galdu.org/ web/?odas=4541&giella1=eng, accessed in May 2010. 34 The same adjectives seem to continue to live in stereotypic chat room writing on the internet. Reading the local Finnish newspaper of the district of Lapland, one can find sentences such as ‘Bitter, jealous, uncooperative drunk who demand Finnish land in the name of Sami, oh goddamnit, take the leather trousers and pull them over your head!’ [in orig. ‘Katkeria, kateellisia, yhteistyökyvyttömiä juoppoja vaatimassa saamelaisuuden nimissä itselleen Suomenmaata, voi jumalauta, ota ne nahkahousut ja veä ne pääs yli!’ ], in Lapin kansa, keskustelu-palsta 14.02.2010.



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At the same time, since the 1970s, all Nordic governments have in the international arena acted as helpers and preservers of Sámi culture. As James Anaya (2010), the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People, stated recently ‘[t]he Sami people and the Nordic countries took a leading role in developing international standards and programs concerning indigenous peoples […]’. The Finnish Government plays a leading role in developing international law but, interestingly, implementing the laws back home, seems far less pressing a concern.

7.6.1 International law and ways to sidestep its requirements The ignorance of the Finnish state towards the Sámi — the right of the Sámi as an indigenous people to maintain their culture — can be concretely observed by following the Finnish Government's ‘efforts' to ratify the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (ILO 1989). From the viewpoint of the Finnish government, land rights questions are especially problematic. The lands formerly owned by Sámi villages are now 90 per cent in state-ownership (Korpijaakko 1989). Article 7 of the convention says that indigenous peoples have the right to ‘decide their own priorities for the process of development as it affects their lives, beliefs, institutions and spiritual well-being and the lands they occupy or otherwise use, and to exercise control over their economic, social and cultural development'. Since 1989 several national expert groups and committees have dealt with the question of how the ratification should be completed and what kind of legal changes it necessitates.35 One committee after another has come to the conclusion that the matter is difficult. Indeed, none of the expert bodies has been able to offer a concrete proposal about how to proceed, while the same matters have been in the centre in each report, namely the land rights. In 2006 when Finland was striving for a permanent seat at the United Nation’s Human Rights Council, Finland promised to ratify the ILO 169 without delay if a seat was allocated to the country. In 2011 Finland obtained a permanent seat but has not yet ratified the convention. Various monitoring bodies of international human rights treaties have continuously raised criticisms towards the government’s failure in this matter. For example, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, held in its March 2009 Concluding Observations on Finland, the following concerns:

35 For example the commissioned reports by Pekka Vihervuori in 1999, by the so-called Pokka Committee in 2000, by Juhani Wirilander in 2000, and by the so-called Land Rights Research Project by four Finnish scholars from the Universities of Oulu and Lapland.

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The Committee reiterates its concern about the limited progress achieved in resolving Sámi rights issues and the State party's failure to adhere to the International Labour Organization Convention No. 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries. The Committee renews its appeal to the State party to find an adequate settlement of the land dispute together with the Sámi people and its recommendations that it adheres to ILO Convention No. 169 as soon as possible (CERD/C/FIN/CO/19).

In Finland, the public argumentation is not talking about ignorance; instead the various efforts and the commitment of the government (after government) to settle the rights in the ways that meet international requirements is stressed in the public sphere. The Sámi Parliament receives a regular reassurance that a solution is just about to be finalised (Näkkäläjärvi 2010). The case of Sámi rights to natural resources has been ignored with arguments that the rights of the indigenous people may not go before the rights of Finns residing in the Sámi homelands. In 2009, the Minister for Agriculture Sirkka-Liisa Anttila, stressed that, as a response to the promise by the Minister of Justice, Tuija Brax, the government will ratify the ILO 169 convention during this government period. However, she will expect that evidence of a unanimous opinion on the ratification in Lapland will be presented before it will be accepted. Anttila also contended that the opinions of the other people who had settled in Lapland must be equally heard, not simply the views of the Sámi Parliament.36 There is no doubt that the case is complicated: since the 18th century people other than Sámi have settled in the Sámi area, later and notably after the Second World War since the state has paid additional salary to Finnish authorities who have accepted to take jobs in periphery regions such as Lapland (Lehtola 2004). Most of the teachers, municipal authorities, city mayors, post officers, police officers, and healthservice personnel etc. are Finns, migrating from the South of the country. Some of these have by now indeed lived for generations in the area which today is called the Sámi homelands and quite a few of them have adopted parts of the Sámi lifestyle, i.e., reindeer herding, hunting and fishing. The situation is even more complicated by the fact that Sámi used to migrate freely in the area where we today find the state borders of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. This means that there are Sámi living in Finnish Lapland who moved there later than some of the Finnish people who moved there from the South. All these complications and the question of who came first are, if we would recognise the Sámi as an indigenous people, irrelevant. The Sámi ‘earn' the right to different treatment and specific protection because they have a different lifestyle, which they want to preserve. Solely on this basis, they should be recognised as a

36 Pääkirjoitus ‘Umpisolmu ei auennutkaan’ (An overhand knot did not open after all), 5.9.2009 Lapin Kansa.



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people and if Finland wishes to continue having an indigenous group, quite radical positive rights are necessary: a total guarantee that the grazing areas of freely moving reindeer remain untouched (by the Finnish forest and mining industry), fishing and hunting rights should be more profitable for Sámi before all other habitants and especially before tourists, and regarding land usage matters, the Sámi Parliament should not only get consulted but decisions on land use should be made jointly with the Parliament possessing equal powers to the state. Similar questions came up in the drafting process of the Nordic Sámi Convention. The Finnish government together with the Norwegian and Swedish governments cooperated with the national Sámi Parliaments of all three countries on a convention, which would guarantee a similar level of protection for the Sámi in all three countries. The work took several years, but after the draft was finalised in 2005, the Finnish government decided that it could not accept the drafted compromise and there would be a need to reform it. As a consequence, the Nordic Sámi Convention has rested (together with the ILO 169) under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice, where a Committee is apparently working on it but no news about the state of affairs has entered the public sphere. Political scientist with Sámi roots, Rauna Kuokkanen (2008), has in her blog writing posed the question whether the state will deploy delay tactics ‘until the problem [the Sámi] disappear'. Martin Scheinin, who was a Finnish member of the team drafting the Nordic convention, wrote in Turun Sanomat that he is disappointed and ashamed of the Finnish Government.37 A group of Parliamentarians requested the intention of the government, from the Parliament in 2008, whether and if yes, when, it will proceed to ratify it. The response by the minister of Justice, Tuija Brax, does not provide a definitive answer and it seems that the government does not feel obliged to give any answers.38 In the Finnish Human Rights Forum in April 2008, Brax and in 2009, both the minister for foreign affairs and the minister for justice promised to find a solution by the end of the year 2009.39 In the beginning of the year 2011, Brax announced that the ratification process of all indigenous peoples' conventions (UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ILO 169 and the Nordic Sámi Convention) will not be completed during this government. She blamed the resistance by the Centre party and especially Paavo Väyrynen, Minister for Foreign

37 Martin Scheinin, Opinion, Turun Sanomat 29.10.2008. 38 Written request on the ratification of the Nordic Sámi Convention to the Spokesman of the Parliament KK 826/2008 vp — Tuula Peltonen /sd ym. on the 7.11.2008 and the answer by the ministry of justice, 27.11.2008. 39 Personal communication with Minister Stubb in the NGO hearing on the Finnish Human Rights Policy. Mr. Stubb regretted the slow advancement of the rights of Sámi 10.3.2009.

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Trade and Development, whose electors are Finnish-born residing in the county of Lapland.40 Finland has also endured a great deal of international pressure: 36 times individual Sámi reindeer herders either from Finland, Sweden or Norway have filed a complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee41 and the government has received a warning that it should not continue with such economic activities that harm the Sámi traditional way of life (HRC 2001). Also the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe and the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Issues have had to intervene, in for example, a case where the Finnish Forestry Company Metsähallitus was logging in a reindeer winter grazing area and forbade this activity for the next 20 years.42 Interestingly, instead of focussing on political or economic rights, the Finnish State has been active in promoting language and culture rights for Sámi and that has worked as an effective deterrent to resolving the problem that is tied to the fact that Sámi have rights but the state does not want them to be equal. If they would have equal rights, would it look like they had more rights? With the rhetoric, also present in the country reports of Finland to the international human rights law instruments, which stresses that the government is ‘doing its best' in settling the dispute on the rights of Sámi, the country is saving face in the international arena. Negative media reports and a general national lack of knowledge about the specific needs of the Sámi insure that there is no active movement putting pressure on the Finnish government. This approach is also visible in the Finnish ‘efforts' to implement the Sámi Language Act of 2003/1086 discussed below.

7.6.2 National laws and ways to sidestep their provisions The process towards recognising Sámi languages as worthy of protection took several decades43 and it was not before the beginning of the 1990s that the Sámi languages

40 Helsingin Sanomat: ‘Alma Media: Suomi ei hyväksy YK:n alkuperäiskansojen sopimusta’ (Alma Media: Finland does not approve the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples), 21.1.2011, http://www. hs.fi/kotimaa/artikkeli/Alma+Media+Suomi+ei+hyv%C3%A4ksy+YKn+alkuper%C3%A4iskansojen +sopimusta/1135263201981, accessed in February 2011. 41 Only 7 of the cases have been accepted as admissible, see the database http://www.worldlii.org/ int/cases/UNHRC. 42 The letter was signed by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples, Rodolfo Stavenhagen of Mexico. See also Matti Huuskonen, Reindeer disputes in Finnish Lapland attract attention of UN, Helsingin Sanomat 26.10.2007, http://www.hs.fi/ english/article/Reindeer+disputes+in+Finnish+Lapland+attract+attention+of+UN/1135231431745, accessed in May 2010. 43 In Sweden and Finland the demand was tied to the growing number of refugees and asylum seekers who received home language / mother tongue teaching outside the school curricula for 2 hours a week. See Toivanen 1995.



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and culture finally gained a secured status in the legislation of all Nordic countries. Before the 1990s, many Sámi people could not learn the language they considered to be their (political) mother tongue (Svonni, 1996; Rosjo, 1997:6). In Finland, language legislation was amended in 1991 to create better chances for the Sámi to learn their languages in schools.44 In 2003 the language law was revised radically in order to ensure that all local authorities and some state authorities provide services in the Sámi languages.45 The number of Sámi speakers is no longer declining rapidly, although for most Sámi languages the legislation has come too late. The number of pupils who express interest in learning Sámi languages has grown steadily as parents become educated and informed about the importance of minority language instruction but at the same time, the number of students receiving education in Sámi has declined from 553 pupils to 483 pupils (Saamelaiskäräjät 2009:13). In 2009 the Ombudsman office for Minorities commissioned a report on the situation of Sámi language learning in the capital city area. The report gave alarming information indicating that the learning of Sámi has not become more accessible since most of the Sámi speaking children (ca. 70 per cent) now are born outside the Sámi homelands where the Law on Sámi Cultural Autonomy applies. According to another report by the Finnish Sámi Parliament, the number of Sámi living outside of the homelands has doubled between the years 1983-2007 (Saamelaiskäräjät 2009:8). Outside of the official home territory, Sámi language is taught as any other immigrant language, as part of a mother tongue education program, which equates to 2.5 hours a week if a group of 4 children is established and a teacher found (Opetusministeriö 2007). It is fair to state that the language rights of the Sámi are not being fulfilled in the way envisaged by the constitution and set out in the Sámi Language Act (SeurujärviKari 2010). This is due, not only to a lack of Sámi-speaking staff employed by the municipal and state authorities of the Sámi Homeland, but to the main problem that is created by oblivious attitudes by local authorities: The National Discrimination Tribunal has, on the request by the Ombudsman for Minorities, investigated cases against the city of Rovaniemi and the municipality of Enontekiö (cases Decision ref 2008-25/Pe-2 and Decision ref 2008-367/Pe-2). Both were found guilty of not offering services and education in Sámi. Irja Seurujärvi-Kari, a university teacher and the long-term vice-president of the Finnish Sámi Parliament, also accuses the National Productivity Program, which aims at improving the basis for competition and achieving higher results by Finnish authorities and companies. According to her, the goals of the program make it difficult to increase the proportion of services in Sámi because support for minority languages

44 L 25.1.1991/171. Finnish Law on changing School legislation (Laki peruskoululain muuttamisesta). 45 The Sámi Language Act 2003, http://www.finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/2003/en20031086, accessed in February 2011.

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is costly. She states that ‘[…] the Sámi language does not have the status of a proper subject or language of instruction in schools. For years, the Sámi Parliament has requested the Ministry of Education to correct the situation by discarding the regional restriction applied to the special funding of Sámi education' (Seurujärvi-Kari 2010). Nevertheless, a least ten schools have been closed in the Sámi home region, due to the low number of pupils (Saamelaiskäräjät 2009:10). If those international agreements to which Finland is a party and those laws that are currently in force in Finland would be taken seriously, then schools in which minority languages are taught should deserve another treatment than schools which operate in majority languages only. Moving Sámi speaking children to bigger schools means that the connection to Sámi languages is severely endangered, too. A commonly shared opinion among Sámi activists interested in education is that ‘[w]hile the statutory status of the Sámi is satisfactory in Finland, the law is not adequately enforced' (Näkkäläjärvi 2010). Certainly there are efforts to revise the laws, too. But the actual problem is less the law than the fact that the state is not taking responsibility for the Sámi situation but instead, hopes that the difficulties will disappear, thus justifying delay tactics. Many Sámi activists are disappointed with the weak role the Sámi have in their own institutions. The Finnish Sámi Parliament is entrusted with matters of culture and traditions, whereas political and financial matters have always been left to the states, who thus actually direct the development of Sámi movements. Before the Law on Cultural Autonomy was passed in Finland in 1995, Pekka Aikio, the president of the Finnish Sámi Parliament complained, ‘The only thing the delegation was allowed to decide independently was the dates of the meetings!’ (Aikio 1992:17). Also the new president of the Sámi Parliament, Klementti Näkkäläjärvi (2010) who is considered to be much more moderate than Pekka Aikio said very precisely: The Sámi Parliament has a very limited genuine decision making power; it is restricted solely to the distribution of certain granted appropriations. The main means of the Sámi Parliament's pursuit of policies are negotiations, pronouncements and initiatives. The present right of self-determination is limited to the presentation of shared opinions and common representation through the Sámi Parliament. The right to self-government as a people is not fulfilled, because self-government is restricted to language and culture only. It does not apply to protection of Sámi livelihoods, though these, as part of the Sámi culture, enjoy legal protection granted by the Constitution of Finland.

There are laws protecting the Sámi and the government has committed itself to taking responsibility concerning the maintenance and development of the future of the Sámi. They enjoy a cultural autonomy in their home region; their languages are protected under a specific language act. The reindeer herding is regulated in several laws as are other agreements securing living in the Sámi homelands. On this level the Finnish state shows considerable interest in supporting the indigenous minority. At the same time, Finland has not signed or ratified the major international treaties



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to protect indigenous peoples and enters time after time into conflict with local Sámi and international actors in matters concerning land use in Lapland. Finland does not want to give up the profits from the forest and mining industry in Lapland, neither does it want to let Sámi representation to participate in the planning of these economic activities nor in the profit-sharing. The international reputation of Finland has suffered because the promises Finland makes in international fora are at odds with the factual treatment of the Sámi: none of the laws were realised without repeated demands by Sámi individuals and organisations. The ‘power' of the majority society appears as a pressure to conform: Sámi representatives are constantly told to settle for what they have already attained, cultural rights. But giving up demands for land rights would not only mean giving up the international agreements' standards but ultimately the Sámi way of life would disappear completely when reindeer herding, fishing and hunting have become professional activities that undermine the traditional economy, and with it a traditional way of life.

7.7 Roma – a persistent underclass To understand the situation of the Roma today, one has to have an understanding of the length and severity of racism targeted at Roma people. One question that has been persistently posed by those sympathetic to their situation is, ‘why do Roma not protest against the minoritisation and marginalisation more openly?’ According to historical records, the Roma immigrated through Sweden and Baltic countries to Finland around 500 years ago. The history of discrimination against the Roma in the Kingdom of Sweden to which Finland belonged until 1809, is long: even until the 1750s Roma who were found loitering somewhere could be hanged and they could be convicted on the grounds of a nomadic lifestyle (Hirvonen 2008:2). The time when Finland was a Grand Duchy of Russia was characterised by strong assimilation efforts against all different nationalities residing in Finland, including the Roma (Pulma 2005:460). According to Camilla Nordberg (2007: 57), the Roma were not only considered to be a social problem but also a problem for forging national identity: their language and culture were defined as foreign, and thus they were perceived to be perpetual strangers. Within this context the state took efforts to ‘solve’ the problem of Roma cultural difference (Nordberg 2007:51). After the Second World War (in which many Roma served) and the loss of the Eastern part of Karelia to the Soviet Union, a large number of Roma was, together with other Finnish refugees, resettled in Finnish municipalities. Many Roma families, who had been living well integrated in cities such as Sortavala (which became a Soviet city after the war), found themselves homeless and unemployed. After the war, the socioeconomic situation of the Roma was bad, particularly concerning housing and education (Pulma 2006). Governmental organisations were

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established in order to improve the living conditions of the Roma but listening to the Roma themselves describe their actual needs and wishes of Roma people. For example, because discrimination was so persistent, many parents did not want their children to attend the majority schools, where they feared they would be victimized. Around this time, the oldest organisation serving Roma, the Romano Missio, which had been founded in 1906 as a Christian charity to ‘help and guide Roma people’ stepped up its activities.46 The Roma’s common physical distinctiveness serves to underline their ‘difference’: they have darker hair and skin than most Finns. In addition, many Roma women wear distinctive clothes (long and fancy velvet dresses) that identify them immediately as members of the Roma group. Over the years, Roma have been closely associated with certain professions such as equine-related businesses (trot, shoeing, horse health services), copper smiths, seasonal work at farms, lace works, and fortune telling—professions which are not tied to any geographical places and can be continued wherever necessary. Roma were often portrayed as premodern, and thus as out-of-sync with a modernizing society. Even though many Roma families did settle down and earn their livelihood in quite common ‘Finnish’ professions, the general stereotype stamped upon them depicted their culture as contributing to their incapacity for normal rational living. When Finland became independent in 1917 all population groups became Finnish citizens, including all Roma people who resided in the country. Different efforts were undertaken to assimilate the Roma population, which included taking children into custody to learn the Finnish lifestyle (through educating Roma to give up their ‘curious habits' and ‘become normal') (Komiteamietintö 1900:3). The effects were contradictory: the Roma became an even more closed community. Research conducted on Roma was undertaken basically by non-Roma and all the expertise guiding the efforts to domesticate ‘the wild Roma' ignored inside knowledge about the Roma. An Advisory Board on Gypsy Issues (later Advisory Board for Roma) was established in 1956, which also included several persons with Roma background. But, in its beginning, the working agenda was clearly defined from a majority perspective (Söderman 2006:11). Since the 1970s there has also been a shift in Roma politics, and Roma have become more involved in Roma organisations and in different state committees, which have tried to ‘solve the Gypsy problem’. Different efforts have been undertaken first to force and then to persuade the Roma to send their children to school and keep them there. Also in the field of housing there have been, especially since the 1970s, programs to guarantee equal housing rights to Roma people and also to pay attention to their

46 Romano Missio (founded as Gibsy Mission) cooperates closely with the Finnish Lutheran Church, see http://www.romanomissio.fi/index.htm, accessed in May 2010.



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cultural needs.47 Interestingly, despite their own participation, Roma as a people have remained at the margins of Finnish society. The last statistical research on the living conditions of the Roma people was undertaken in 1970 and it revealed a huge gap in the living standards between the mainstream and the Roma populations (Paananen 2009). Due to privacy laws, such research has not been possible anymore because the law does not permit questions about ethnicity. Still the fact is, however, that the same or similar problems continue, tangled with discrimination, low education, cultural change and alienation (Hirvilammi and Laatu 2008). According to 2007 statistics, most of the discrimination cases in district courts were filed by Roma. Most of the cases were addressing the right to enter a restaurant or to right to housing (Aaltonen, Joroinen and Villa 2008:31). Regardless of all the educational programs, which have been in place since the 1970s, the marginalisation of Roma has not diminished. A study of the state of the education of Roma children in Finland concluded that despite all the hard work, the Roma are placed into special education, drop out of school or repeat the class much more often than mainstream pupils (Opetushallitus 2004:5-6). Discrimination studies, the few that exist, also indicate that the discrimination of Roma continues at a disturbing frequency. For example, according to a recent poll among 300 capital city area company leaders, only a half would hire a Roma. The reasons given by the employers are low educational attainment and lack of work experience. 12 per cent would not hire a Roma in any case, while 70 per cent of Roma think that prejudice is the main reason for unemployment (Syrjä and Valtakari 2008). They face discrimination in the area of employment and housing (Hedman 2009a) and are continuously subjected to everyday discrimination in the streets. The prejudices of the majority population and the weaker economic position of the Roma also make it hard for them to find adequate accommodation in the private housing market (Ministry of Social Affairs and Health 2004:9). In the current climate that is more favourable to diversity, a new tendency has arisen that promotes the involvement of the Roma in the planning phase of projects. There is some evidence to indicate that this recent shift has improved the quality of projects as well as the interest of Roma to participate in them.

7.7.1 Blood feuding There have always been Roma persons and families who have enjoyed great respect among the majority population and Roma have carried out ethnically distinct, and

47 Finnish Roma have often been characterised as the most traditional Roma on Earth. Many families maintain traditions which prescribe that old people cannot use the same bathroom as the young or that young people may not live in an apartment located above the old people. After the death of a person, the family has to move to another ‘clean’ flat, etc. see i.e. Huttunen and Viljanen 1976.

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for the majority’s well-being, important professions. But as an ethnic group, people classified as Roma, have suffered under negative stereotypes, open discrimination and racism even though they share a common history with Finns. Those persons with plenty of influence and power have sometimes served as ethnic brokers (Toivanen 2001) between the majority and the minority. I shall get back to this matter later and discuss how this position has empowered the Roma both in respect to the majority as well as with minorities. When on the one hand it is important to underline that Roma have not selected a lower standard of living and not voluntarily chosen to be targets of racism and discrimination, it is equally relevant to underline that they have found ways to endure the situation in which laws do not equally protect them as they would other Finnish persons. This may be the main reason that Roma can be described as a separate ethnic community with internal specific ‘laws’ governing their life. As Aulis Aarnio (1989:16-17) shows, existing power relationships always dictate the existing laws, and particularly impact the ways in which laws are interpreted. There are reasons why Roma have continued to act as an autonomous body inside the Finnish state. Because the national laws that focus on protecting the individual do not work particularly well for the more communally-oriented Roma, justice by their own hand has evolved as the customary system of justice among them. The leading families have been the care-takers of traditions: for example the Roma who lived by travelling in a geographical area from house to house to secure their living, did not want other (Roma) families to come to the same areas to take their share of jobs and business. Neither did they want other Roma to come and ruin their reputation by stealing or otherwise misbehaving. If a new Roma family entered the ‘area' of another Roma family, they were expected to ask for permission (Grönfors 1977). Today, in a modern economy when no one is depending on travelling from house to house to make their living, this moving permission has become a relic, but which is used especially in the city areas to hinder new Roma people to move to their neighborhoods. Of course, this can also be explained rationally: the settled Roma are always afraid that newcomers will do something bad and therefore their lives will get more difficult: the Finns will just think that it's Roma who stole etc. and accuse all Roma, not the specific individual who in fact committed the crime. Another example of difficulties between culturally developed traditions and modern understandings of equal laws is the case of blood feuding, which has been addressed recently in the majority media. According to Roma tradition, if A kills or severely injures B, the family of the person A has to immediately (even if it would be in the middle of the night) move away and take care that they never encounter the member of family B. This is the way to show respect to the family of the victim. The blood feuding is not about bringing peace between the families but to show the strength of the kin group (Grönfors 2001:168). Today, however, some people feel that, as they themselves have not harmed anyone, for example, a wife or sister of a murderer, who wishes to take no responsibility for the crime by the husband or



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brother who (often in a drunken condition) killed an outsider, they do not want to begin avoiding. This is penalised by the Roma; it is for many difficult to accept that someone would not obey the customary law. If a person, who is afraid of revenge in the sense of blood feuding, would seek help and protection with the Finnish police force or other authorities he or she would be punished by other Roma. As Grönfors (2001:154) stresses, the police shall in no circumstance be involved and the revenge action shall not harm any Finns, not even the Finnish spouses of Roma, but the children from mixed marriages are considered Roma in this tradition. The transition caused by integration of Roma to Finnish culture, means today that there is often a serious conflict between those who wish to enjoy equal rights according to Finnish laws and those who distrust the state and wish to continue with the Romani internal legal system. Of course those who occupy powerful positions in the customary legal system are extremely reluctant to obey the Finnish laws already for the reason that inside of the Roma legal system they enjoy power whereas in the Finnish system, they are the outcast.

7.7.2 The Roma language – revitalisation efforts of a secret code The Roma language spoken in Finland has been considered a secret language and the Roma were, according to their own customary law, not supposed to teach it to outsiders. In the 1970s the number of people speaking the language had already become very low and as refugee children started to receive mother tongue teaching in the schools, Romani language lessons were also proposed. The education of Roma language as a mother tongue was inspired by the example provided by Sweden, where Finnish Roma was taught as an immigrant language. The first Roma teachers were Finnish immigrants to Sweden from the 1960s and 70s who returned to Finland to teach. In the elementary schools, Romani teaching was first carried out in afternoon clubs and since 1989 Romani culture and language have been offered by parental request as mother tongue classes. The constitutional reform in 2000 levelled the right for Roma to maintain and develop their own language and culture as a constitutional guarantee. This was also bolstered by the Decree on Children's Day-care, which enabled support for Romani language and culture, and by the Basic Education Act, which confirmed the place of the Roma language as a mother tongue. The law mentions the right of the Roma to maintain and develop their own language and it obligates the public authorities to back this. This is a substantial support for improving the situation of the Roma. In ratifying the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages Finland identified Romani as a non-territorial minor­ ity language, and in ratifying the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Finland identified the Roma and the Sámi as traditional national minorities.

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It may be unfair to evaluate the workings of law after such a short time in force. However, it seems worrisome from the perspective of the Roma that the number of Romani language speakers continues to decline (Opetushallitus 2004). According to a report carried out by the Romani Education Unit of the National Board of Education in 2001 only eight percent of Roma children attending primary school receive Romani lessons (Ministry of Social Affairs and Health 2004:7), whereas today the number is less than 5 per cent (estimation by Granqvist 2006). Recent decades have seen the development of teacher training courses in Romani, the production of Romanimedium teaching materials and the efforts to encourage its use among the Roma through things such as summer schools. According to the study carried out by the National Board of Education in 2000 and 2001, 19 per cent of Roma children repeat a class, 5 per cent drop out of school completely, 12 per cent change their school during the school year, 50 per cent receive special education, 2 per cent attended pre-school classes and only less than 6 per cent received education in Romani language and culture (Opetushallitus 2004). The numbers are extremely high and tell a simple story: the education of Roma has not improved despite of all the projects and programs. As of 2011, not a single person has graduated from the teachers’ education unit with the Romani language as their teaching language, which means that there is not a single teacher with formal competence to teach Romani in Finland.48

7.8 Power as a theory and a practice The question of why the Finnish Roma people have remained so marginalised is often explained on the basis of factors having to do with cultural differences: they want to keep to themselves and even their language is so well protected that outsiders cannot learn it. It is certainly true that the Roma have ‘kept to themselves’ but less due to cultural reasons. As has been shown above, many Roma have lived integrated lives as respected neighbours in many Finnish communities over an extended period of time. They have had traditional professions and big families. The family relationships have been extended to other towns and regions and formed a network with strong ties and ruled within the hierarchical power relationship inside the network. At the same time, especially after the Second World War, when Finland lost eastern Karelia to Russia, many more Roma arrived as internally displaced persons and started looking for livelihoods and places to live. This formed one basis for the travelling life-style: a periodical workforce was necessary in the Finnish countryside and Roma families had their own annual travelling routes. They knew those houses that offered

48 The University of Helsinki is currently participating in a three-year EU project Qualirom led from the University of Graz, with aim of improving the quality of teaching Roma languages in Europe.



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work and a place to wash and stay. In return they took care of diverse chores on the farms. Modernisation and industrialisation has change the lifestyle of all habitants of Finland, and also the Roma conditions of living have changed, in that they have had extreme difficulties to enter the new kind of job market that requires educational credentials. The Finnish policies have been highly ambiguous: on the one side are the policies driving for equal opportunity and cultural neutrality, while on the other side there are policies stressing the cultural (or even human?) difference of Roma, explaining how and why they have to be treated differently in the day-care, school or workplace. Either way, the Roma have only had a marginal part in revising the policies and only such Roma who have either grown in Finnish families or are from powerful Roma families with in-group prestige have been included. These cultural brokers may, in a worst case scenario not have any real interest in empowering the Roma. Similar arguments can be made about the Sámi. Finnish laws have dictated the Sámi way of life for such a long time and the Sámi activists have been educated in the Finnish system. Asking for a real ‘Sámi interest' may be an impossible task. Those Sámi who mobilise international bodies to shake the picture of the Finnish state as a Sámi or even minority friendly state are often dismissed, even within their own ethnic group. Both Sámi and Roma try to find ways to stay in contact with the state authorities, but acquiring the reputation as ‘difficult' means to be left outside of the sphere of decision making completely. The cultural brokers have to very carefully find ways of balancing between the two ends of the spectrum: the needs and demands of the Finnish state and what could be defined as a true ethnic interest. Charles Tilly (1991) posed the question that many others have kept asking for years before and after: Why do subordinates comply, why are they not resisting continuously? Why would e.g. the Roma people accept the amount of discrimination against them without going to streets and protesting against the injustice? Why do they not make both the out-group and in-group discrimination public? Why would the Sámi obey the Finnish politics e.g. in land use questions which lead to a complete fading of the traditional way of life in the North and not address the injustices more openly in the public sphere? Why are they not openly bringing their cases to the streets of the capital city of Helsinki where the decision-makers pass? Tilly’s famous check-list for possible answers begins with the statement that it might be that the premise is incorrect: that subordinates rebel all the time but in covert ways, or they get something for agreeing to be subordinate, or subordinates are so closely part of the given system that they do not recognise themselves as subordinates, or as a result of mystification, repression or lack of alternative ideological frames, the subordinates remain unaware of their true interests, or they lack means and resources, ability or all of the above-mentioned. Steven Lukes (2005) commented on Tilly’s answers saying that of course all the above mentioned in various combinations apply. But the answer that makes Lukes curious is that people may not know their ‘true interests’. This is what Lukes has called the third dimension of power which

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is the power ‘to prevent people, to what-ever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things’ (2005:11). The third dimension of power, the dimension in which no action is visible or even necessary, when things are as they are and nobody feels the necessity to question the situation, has been my interest in this project and this article. My empirical assessment took a critical look on the following three dimensions of power following Steven Lukes’ (2005) theory. The first dimension of power, which he calls the pluralist view of power, stresses concrete and observable behaviour. For Dahl (1958:466) who is one of the prominent protagonists of this approach, power can be analysed only after ‘careful examination of a series of concrete decisions’. The clear limit of this view is that it is restricted to the observable decision making and is not able to grasp the agenda-setting behind it. The two-dimensional view of power is a critical response to the one-dimensional and tries to include the question of how certain biases are mobilised in the agenda setting before the decision makingprocess can even begin. For Bachrach and Baratz (1970:43-4), these biases are a set of predominant values, beliefs, rituals, and institutional procedures that operate to the benefit of certain persons and groups, at the expense of others. This approach makes it possible to analyse both decision-making and non-decision-making. It allows the investigation of questions related to agenda control and ways in which potential issues are kept outside of the political process. But the same restriction remains as in the first model: Only observable conflicts, even though both overt and covert, can be analysed. In my view, a three-dimensional approach, as envisioned by Lukes originally in 1974, is necessary for a study such as this one, which focuses not only on clear majority-minority relationships but also on the intermingled liaisons inside these categories and on the mixed and multiple co-operations between individuals identifying with several categories. This ‘radical view’ allows for a power analysis without an observable conflict. This approach means a study of notions, such as the public sphere or civil society, as hegemonic concepts, which control and change the new topics before they are allowed to enter the public sphere or to be included as actors and interests of civil society.49 One can identify at least two strong research trends here. One which may be best associated with James Scott (1990) who says that whatever we see, hear and believe, people are constantly rebelling and resisting, even though in covert ways. The other starting place is Foucaultian theory. Michel Foucault (1978) argues that domination cannot be escaped, it is everywhere and there is no freedom of thought or reasoning independent of it. Contrasting these two and addressing the question whether we can ever tackle the true interests of people, I have discussed the ways in which the Finnish Sámi and Roma tackle power and their relationship to a hegemonic Finnish state.

49 See here the feminist critique of the public sphere, i.e. Bell 1999.



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In concluding, the Finnish state is officially committed to creating an equal society. The non-discrimination and respect of equality are defined today as the cornerstones of Finnish society. This has been effective in the way that most Finnish people themselves define equality as one of the true markers of Finnish identity. When it comes to minority interests, Finland has pursued a policy which has tried to include difference-demands within the general policies: to each specific differenceclaim, there is an advisory board where people of the ‘difference-claim-makers' sit next to Finnish authorities from relevant ministries to discuss matters of mutual concern. This sounds like exemplary inclusion politics where, e.g., the Sámi and the Roma representatives have the right to participate in the decision-making process. My assessment is, however, that as this inclusion is initially defined from a majority vantage, it only works towards further undermining minority identities. The Sámi have been granted cultural and language autonomy at the cost of rights to land and natural resources. The autonomy is effective in an area where fewer and fewer Sámi can afford living traditional ways of life because their right to gain their livelihood in their traditional professions has been made ever more difficult. 70 per cent of Sámi children are born outside of the area of the cultural autonomy homelands. The right to difference, to a different way of life, has been compromised with negative consequences, endangering their future as indigenes. When few or no Sámi pursue traditional livelihoods, will they still be granted rights as indigenous peoples? The Roma have been granted sameness rights; they cannot be segregated anymore without violating the non-discrimination law. Several official bodies discussing the matters concerning non-discrimination in housing, employment, family-life and education have been established and representatives of Roma people are in most cases involved. There are strong promises to level the way for Roma to become equal citizens. At the same time, the hundreds of years of continuing racism against the Roma, has developed a segregated Roma community with its own rules and laws. The response of the Finnish political establishment has been to develop guidebooks for Finnish employers, teachers and health personnel about how to face the difference represented by Roma. Even those Roma who would like to break out from the rather strict cultural codes of the Roma community face the difficulty that they are treated by authorities as Roma (with whom you shall not speak on certain topics and whose in-group discrimination shall not be noticed officially). They seem to be doomed to difference: Instead of ensuring that the Roma way of life could become a part of Finnishness, they are categorised as outsiders. The real interests of these two minorities remain untouched in the state politics. Recognising their needs and guaranteeing them rights to both equality and difference is ever more difficult when the minorities are represented in official bodies by persons who are quite assimilated in the ‘Finnish-way-of-thinking'. Those who argue for another perspective are often dismissed as difficult persons and are excluded from ministry-led advisory boards. If the answer to the problem is even more participation by minorities, it would still be an open question whether a state with a homogenous

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self-image would be able to change: If participation is defined in terms set by the majority, the marginalization of minority interests will continue. The future will show whether the Sámi and Roma will radicalise their approach and find a platform to address difference-demands on a more effective manner or whether they will fade away and get dissolved into a homogeneous version of ‘Finnishness'.

References Aaltonen, M., M. Joronen and S. Villa. 2009. Syrjintä Suomessa 2008. Helsinki, Finland: Ihmisoikeusliitto. Aikio, M. Sopimattomat saamelaiset. 2006. Tiedepolitiikka 4: 21-34, http://elektra.helsinki.fi/ se/t/0782-0674/31/4/sopimatt.pdf. Aikio, S., Aikio-Puoskari, U. & Helander J. 1994. The Sámi Culture. Lapin Sivistysseuran Julkaisuja 49. Helsinki: Painatuskeskus. Anaya, J. 2010. Opening Statement of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, 15.4.2010 in Rovaniemi, Finland. Bachrach P. and M.S. Baratz. 1970. Power and Poverty – Theory and Practice. New York Harper and Row.. Bell, V. 1999. “Mimesis as Cultural Survival: Judith Butler and Anti-Semitism.” Theory, Culture & Society 16(2):133-61. Boxberg, K. and T. Heikka. 2009. Lumedemokratia. Helsinki, Finland: WSOY. Council of Europe. 1995. Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities, ETS 157, 1.2.1995. Dahl, R.A. 1958. “A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model.” American Political Science Review 52(2): 463-469. Foucault, M. 1978. Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison. Brighton, UK: Harvester. Granqvist, K. 2006. Selvitys Suomen romanikielen nykytilasta sekä kielentutkimuksen ja -huollon tarpeista. http://www.kotus.fi/files/729/romaniselvitys-1.pdf, accessed in May 2010. Grönfors, M. 1977. Blood feuding among Finnish Gypsies, Research Report, Department for Sociology, University of Helsinki. __________. 2001. “Institutional Non-marriage in the Finnish Roma Community and Its Relationship to Rom Traditional Law.” Pp. 149-169 in Weinrauch, W. O., Gypsy Law—Romani Legal Traditions and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hedman, H. 2008. Romanikieli ja —identiteetti. Romanikielen tila tänään. 2.9., http://www.oph.fi/ binary.asp?path=1;443;87258;87261;87266;87275&field=Fil __________. 2009a. Suomen romanikieli: sen asema yhteisössään, käyttö ja romanien kieliasenteet, Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 8, Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus, Helsinki. __________. 2009b. Romanikielen kielipoliittisen seurannan vuosiraportti. Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus 1.1.–31.12, http://www.kotus.fi/files/1385/Romanikielen_kielipoliittinen_ seuranta_2009.pdf, last accessed in May 2010. Hirvilammi, T. and M. Laatu. 2008. Epäoikeudenmukainen kohtelu on romaniasiakkaiden arkea, In: Tuuli Hirvilammi and Markku Laatu (eds.) Toinen vääryyskirja. Helsinki: Kela, 183-198. Hirvonen, H. 2008. Suomen Romaniväestöm oikeusaseman muutokset vuosina 1900-1980. Pro gradu –tutkielma, Oikeustieteellinen tiedekunta, Helsingin yliopisto 21.6. HRC 1992. Views of the Human Rights Committee under article 5, para. 4, of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on the Civil and Political Rights, UN doc. No. CCPR/C/52/511/1992.

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Huttunen, K. and A. M.Viljanen. 1976. Mustalaiset - vähemmistönä Suomessa. Kouluhallitus. ILO International Labour Organisation’s Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, adopted in 1989. Jaakkola, M. 2009. Maahanmuuttajat suomalaisten näkökulmasta, asennemuutokset 1987-2007. Helsingin kaupungin tietokeskuksen tutkimuksia 2009:1. Khleif, B. B. 1993. Minoritization of Languages in Their Traditional Historical Territories: Issues of Autonomy and Identity in the Nation-State. Sociologia Internationalis 31(2):159-178. Berlin: Duncker u. Humblot. Kuokkanen, R. 2008. Sami Rights Policy in Finland: Delay Tactics until the Problem Disappears? Blog entry on the 10.10.2008: http://rauna.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/human-rights-policyin-finland-delay-tactics-until-the-problem-disappears, accessed in May 2010. Lehtola, V-P. 2004. The Sami People: Traditions in Transition. Trans. Linna Weber Muller-Wille. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press. Lepola, O. 2000. Ulkomaalaisesta suomenmaalaiseksi. Monikulttuurisuus, kansalaisuus ja suomalaisuus 1990-luvun maahanmuuttopoliittisessa keskustelussa. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Toimituksia 787. Lukes, S. 2005 Power a Radical View. 2 ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Mahler, C. 2009. “Is Human Rights Education a Means of Supporting Minorities?” Pp. 187-201 in C. Mahler, A. Mihr and R. Toivanen, The UN Decade for Human Rights Education 1995-2004 and Its Contribution to the Furtherance of the Rights of National Minorities, Berlin: Peter Lang Verlag. Mahler, C., A. Mihr, and R.Toivanen. 2009. UN Decade for Human Rights Education 1995-2004 and Its Contribution to the Furtherance of the Rights of National Minorities, Berlin: Peter Lang Verlag. Mann, M. 1999. “The Dark Side of the Democracy: The Modern Tradition of Ethnic and Political Cleansing.” The New Left Review, Issue 235, May/June. Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2010. The Third Periodic Report on the Implementation of the Framework on the Protection of National Minorities. February 2010. Ministry of Justice: Act on the Sámi Parliament 974/1995, adopted 7.7.1995, last amended 1.1.2004. Ministry of Social Affairs and Health: Finland’s Romani People. Brochures of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health 2004: 2, 4th edition, http://www.stm.fi/c/document_library/get_file?fold erId=28707&name=DLFE-3777.pdf&title=Finland_s_Romani_People___Finitiko_Romaseele_ en.pdf, accessed in May 2010. Nickul, K. 1984. Onko saamelaisilla tulevaisuutta? (Gibt es eine Zukunft für die Saamen?) In: Bálggispolku. 1932-1982 Lapin Sivistysseura, Jyväskylä: Gummerus, 45-50. Näkkäläjärvi, K. 2010. Statement by Finnish Sámi Parliament on the Realization of Sámi People's Right to Self-Determination in Finland, Conference with the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People James Anaya, Rovaniemi, April 15. Offe, C. 1996. Homogenität im demokratischen Verfassungsstaat - Sind politische Gruppenrechte eine adäquate Antwort auf Identitätskonflikte? Peripherie 64/ 1996, 26-45. Opetusministeriö .2007. Opetusministeriön asetus 392/2007 vieraskielisten sekä saamenkielisten ja romanikielisten oppilaiden täydentävään opetukseen perusopetuksessa ja lukiokoulutuksessa myönnettävän valtionavustuksen perusteista. Opetushallitus. 2004. Romanilasten perusopetuksen tila, selvitys lukuvuodelta 2000-2001, Opetushallitus. http://www.oph.fi/instancedata/prime_product_julkaisu/oph/ embeds/48985_romanilasten_perusopetuksen_tila.pdf, accessed in May 2010. Paananen, S. 2009. Neljäkymmentä vuotta kielivähemmistöjen elinolotutkimuksesta, Hyvinvointikatsauksessa 3. Pulma, P. 2006. Suljetut ovet. Pohjoismaiden romanipolitiikka 1500-luvulta EU –aikaan. Jyväskylä.

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Niko Pyrhönen, Karin Creutz and Marjukka Weide

8 Orchestrating National Unity: An Assessment of Discourses in Immigrant Legislation and the Surrounding Parliamentary and Public Debates 8.1 Introduction In this paper, we examine the articulations and perceptions of the state’s role in the management of immigration during the past decade in Finland. We look at recent developments in Finnish immigration legislation – with particular focus on the Aliens Act of 2004 – and in the surrounding debates in parliamentary and media arenas. With the focus on these debates, we seek to explicate in three separate sections how and to what effect the state’s role is being articulated alongside the endeavours to manage immigration. First, we consider the policy-level data in terms of the preparatory work in the ministries and in the parliamentary committees. This is done in order to identify some underlying national discourses that support the management of the perceivably immigration-induced, societal heterogenisation. Achieving this also entails identifying frames within which national belonging and unity are being discursively constructed vis-à-vis the immigrant Other.1 The section will also propose four frames through which national unity is discursively produced in the data considered in the subsequent sections. These frames will also be illustrated through some concrete examples from the preparatory process of the 2004 Aliens Act. By establishing this in the first section, this chapter outlines the nature and interconnectedness of the various impediments that the top-down articulations of national unity may present to the development of more decentralised and case-sensitive immigration regimes within a welfare state context. Secondly, we examine the empirical manifestations of the belonging frames within parliamentary speeches of the Finnish MPs, analyzing the 2003–2004 debates on the Aliens Act and a complementary text from the 2003 Integration Act debates. We track down themes and ways of talking which relate to the ones identified in

1 Othering is an important theoretical apparatus here. It defines the process through which an individual or collective is placed in the position of the Other (Eide 2008:156). Simultaneously, the notion of a shared collective is delineated through these social boundaries. Thus, othering is decisive when discussing the questions of belonging that are in the core of national unity (McIver 2003). © 2015 Niko Pyrhönen, Karin Creutz and Marjukka Weide This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.

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the preparatory material of the Aliens Act (section 1 of this paper).2 We regard the parliament as a privileged arena for making discursive constructions of national unity. Rather than really aiming at influencing the decisions, the plenary speeches address the citizens and the media, trying to communicate the angles and emphases of the representatives to those they claim to represent (see Saward 2006). Thirdly, a similar kind of analysis is extended to the immigration debate in public fora in order to identify the kinds of articulations on the role of the state in the management of immigration that resonate there. This is crucial, because it is mainly through the media representations of state agency (rather than actual MP performances and the legislative process per se) through which the citizens participate in the public debate on immigration and hence also contribute to the delineation of the boundaries of national unity. The data considered here consists of editorials and newspaper articles, letters to the editor and posts to the discussion board of Finland’s biggest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. The accounts considered were published during the important junctions within the past decade when relevant immigrant legislation was pending (1999, 2004 and 2009). In examining the discourses framing the state’s role in the management of immigration, we adopt a markedly institutionalist (or top-down) perspective. This means that we are first and foremost concerned with what the state is perceived to be doing and what goals it is perceived to have in ministries, the parliament and in media debates. On this basis, in this paper we propose some effects these perceptions might have on civil society. This can be contrasted with many classical takes on the so called input model of representative democracy that start bottom-up, by tracing the development of policies from grass root ideas and public philosophies.3 Despite the above juxtaposition, we do acknowledge interplay between these two poles of civil society and government. We only start our analysis from the other end of the continuum. This means that we evaluate the role of the state and government as instruments of national unity by identifying characteristics in the top-down discourses that have been successfully mediated to penetrate into civil society. This entails examining those facets of popular articulations of national unity that belong in an officially sanctioned discourse in the sense of having a legalist and statist emphasis and dealing explicitly with the role of the state in the management, or orchestration, of immigration.

2 Here our assessment of the parliamentary debates is delimited by the framework established in the second section. For a grounded descriptive of the parliamentary debates on the Aliens Act of 2004, see Pellander, Saara. 2009. “Sending and Receiving, Welcoming and Excluding: Developments and Debates in Finland’s Migration Policy.” Pp. 128-136 in Debating Migration: Political Discourse on Labor Immigration in Historical Perspective, edited by M. Spång and S. Mayer. Innsburg: Studien Verlag. 3 An example of the classic with the emphasis on the latter kind of bottom-up channeling would be Lipset, Seymour M. and Stein Rokkan, ed. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: Free Press, whereas our approach would share its starting point with historical institutionalist classics such as Huntington, Samuel. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press.



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This approach is particularly interesting within the context of immigration, because at the same time that some contend that the role of the state and the national context are becoming less pertinent in the actual process of immigrant integration (Caponio and Borkert 2010), the articulations of how the state should manage the increase in the allegedly immigration-induced societal heterogeneity appear to be proliferating within the Finnish public debate. While we exemplify these articulations with only the Finnish context in mind, there is good reason to believe that the propagation of the statist critique of immigration within civil society is not a Finnish anomaly. Rather, this tendency could be hypothesised as a common feature of countries with a long welfare-state tradition and an enduring support for it even in the face of new serious macro-level challenges, as is particularly the case with the Nordic countries (Hemerijk 2004:184-185). The relevance of the emphasis on the Finnish context can also be justified by regarding it as a ‘case’ where nation-minded articulations seek to challenge a supranational harmonisation of immigration related norms. The notion that national European regimes of immigration law are increasingly being constrained by the international discourse of human rights and free mobility – as stressed in treaties signed by most of the union countries – has become increasingly challenged (see, for example, Lahav 2004:26). This is also a further reason for not considering the Finnish public sphere here as an object of research per se, but rather as context, where many ubiquitously transnational juxtapositions are articulated. Exploring the legislative dimension of immigration from ministry-level preparation through parliamentary performances to media discourses and public debates allows us to sketch a discursive continuum addressing the reinforcement of national unity from a top-down perspective. Especially for societies that are marked by relatively high levels of homogeneity in terms of ethnicity, the legislative process seeks to gather support from citizenry by reproducing many of the constructions of national unity that proliferate throughout civil society. However, to the extent that these legislative constructions are forged as tools for distinguishing existing, ‘good’ national’ practices from those perceived as of foreign origin, the top-down dimension effectively reproduces ethnocentric particularisation in civil society instead of only passively reflecting some supposedly existing civic consensus.4 In terms of theoretical contributions, it is useful to consider the conclusions based on the Finnish data to give grounds for some tentative extrapolations concerning the nature of impediments that articulations of national unity may pose for the development of immigration and integration regimes and how some of these hurdles might be discursively overcome.

4 While there is, naturally, a significant pressure from the grass root level to influence public policy pertaining to immigration, our focus on representations of Finnishness exclusively in legislation-relevant discourse does not allow us to explore that avenue within the confines of this paper.

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8.2 Framing the boundary-work of national unity – a model of discursive practices with reference to the preparatory process of the Aliens Act of 2004 A multiplicity of societal practices and discourses incorporate the socio-spatial specifications of who is included and who is excluded (Paasi 2002:158) and, as such, these boundary-defining practices play a key role in the process of establishing and reproducing national unity. Configurations of these ‘symbolic boundaries’ have also been used to illustrate the sharpened public opinion toward immigration into European countries (see Bail 2008). Put simply, collective identification, solidarity and the sense of unity in the bonding sense of social capital (see Putnam 2000:2023) are negotiated in relation to these borders that also establish a more or less dichotomised relationship to an immigrant Other. We propose that a constructionist mindset in the analysis allows an acknowledgment of the top-down reproduction of national unity around the normalising institutional frames as one of the implicit co-products of this form of Othering, to which ‘immigrants’ (as a group purportedly forming a unitary whole) are subjected (concerning the use of reified categories in Othering, see, for example, Hall 1997).5 Here, a national immigration regime becomes crucial in the reproduction of national unity since such a regime incorporates an institutionalised, legal stance towards the Other. Moreover, such a national regime is not only manifest in the legislation but also reflects on the ‘public philosophies’ of the state’s role in the integration of immigrants (see Favell 2001:14-16) as exemplified in part within the public debate on immigration legislation. Therefore, in order to study how national unity has been reproduced in Finland during the past decade, one important aspect to examine is how the articulations of the state’s role in managing immigration contributes to this boundary-work by facilitating a national variant of unity as a counterpoise to the perceived immigrant-induced heterogeneity. This is also how these discourses can be linked to the practice of Othering in the Finnish context.6 There is another reason for concentrating on these discursively formed boundaries, as opposed to some quantitative immigration-relevant phenomena. Namely – as also suggested by our data – it is a relatively common perception among

5 It is relatively common in Finland to debate immigration with reference to the category of immigrants who, nevertheless, constitute a highly variable spectrum of people – refugees from Africa, migrant workers from Eastern Europe, skilled workers from US and wealthier European countries. It is questionable if they indeed do have some common denominator that is pertinent to many of the arguments made about ‘immigrants’. This reification of represented categories is also criticized by Hall on a more theoretical level. 6 It is not possible to present a historical discussion of immigration and othering in Finland here. For good analysis on the process of othering towards immigrant minorities in Finland, see, for example, Löytty 2005.



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autochthonous populations who nurture narratives of an ethno-national homogeneity of the past to regard societal heterogenisation as significantly immigration-induced. These perceptions may spread even when asserting them may be clearly at odds with the demographic hard data on the magnitude of the impact of immigration. Indeed, often there are a myriad of other societal phenomena at work that may be much more efficient in eroding the traditional notion of the citizenry as homogenous (see, for example, Soysal 1994). Such a development is particularly pertinent to Finland, which is also underlined by the fact that a markedly heated political and public debate has evolved over the phenomenon in the late 2000s (on the proliferation of anti-immigration sentiment in public debate and the ‘I am not a racist, but…’ discourse, see Keskinen 2009). This discursive development can be contrasted with the demographic fact by that, concurrently, the country has consistently experienced levels of immigration significantly below that of EU-15 countries.7 Indeed, we argue that within the Nordic welfare state context, nation-specific unity and solidarity constructions do play a major part in the way a ‘just’ and ‘practicable’ form of immigration management and integration is conceptualised. It seems that these relatively idiosyncratic considerations – rather than an application of some quantitative and objectively perceivable indicators – is what defines to a large degree how the policy programmes and other top-down measures for regulating immigration and organising immigrant integration are formulated by the government and evaluated by the citizens. The discontinuity between perceptions and objective quantifiers pertaining to immigration is noticeable throughout assessed discourses. This suggests that – although commonly framed otherwise by the discussants themselves – the material well-being of an ethnic Finn in Finland is not the explicit cause of anxiety in the discourses. Rather, the immigration-related anxiety concerns questions of identity that can be understood in terms of the third Lukesian level of power. According to Lukes, the first dimension of power is manifest in an explicit conflict of interest; for example, when one manner of redistribution is being chosen over others that are on the table. The second level pertains to the agenda setting power – the question of what issues are brought on the table in the first place. Finally, the most relevant dimension in the context of our study is the third dimension, which entails the power to change what people want by creating new kinds of identities (Lukes 1974:21-26).

7 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, “International Migration 2006” in United Nations Publication, No. E.06.XIII.6, March 2006. The discontinuity between the demographic reality and the public debate around immigration further suggests that the discursive construction of the phenomenon of immigration is highly dependent on nation-specific logic, rather than on search for some neoliberal rationalized optimal outcomes.

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It is from many perspectives useful to conceptualise Othering in terms of this third dimension of power, since the anxiety over national unity is rarely reducible either to the struggle for material resources or the ability of the ‘power elite' to put immigrant issues on the political agenda. Rather, this third dimension of power, denoting the control over the subjectively experienced, identity-relevant interests, has great potential to explain the perceived need for top-down management of immigrant integration in terms of containment of increasing heterogenisation which is supposedly significantly eroding the national unity. As noted earlier, a more constructive, research-oriented approach allows us to see how the relative strength of the heterogenising impact of immigration vis-à-vis other, pre-existing processes of heterogenisation is highly questionable. The same applies for the empirical validity of the discourse linking national unity and the economic feasibility of welfare structures (Crepaz 2006). Therefore, with an emphasis on the discursive level, we have identified four discursive frames that produce national unity through Othering in the preparatory work of the Aliens Act of 2004. In the following we will first briefly introduce some interesting particularities of the Act. Then we will illustrate each of the aforementioned frames and their interconnectedness with concrete examples from the legislative context, before finally analysing the parliamentary and media debates by applying the same four-fold framework. Starting in 2000, the Ministry of the Interior organised an extensive legislative review of the Aliens Act, even though the old act had only been enacted nine years before. According to the then Minister of the Interior Kari Rajamäki (SD)8, the review was motivated by the need to prepare the legislative means to confront the inflow of immigrants from the upcoming enlargement of the EU in May 2004 and to capitalise on the assets of international migration whilst eliminating any possible negative repercussions for Finland (PTK 40/2003 vp). The extension of the preparatory work over five years is partly explained by the parliamentary elections and change of the government in the middle of the process in 2003, but the delay can also be attributed to what Rajamäki calls the ‘extensive, active hearing-process of national and international NGOs' (Ibid.). The breadth over which this hearing-process was extended is indeed significant in the Finnish context, consisting of over 60 civic bodies. However, regardless of this extensive hearing-process, the memos of the parliamentary committees (most significantly, see Memorandum of the Parliamentary Administrative Committee, HaVM 4/2003) that assess the expert statements submitted by the human rights and migration NGOs indicate that the vast majority of the feedback (see, Ministry of Interior,

8 SDP = The Finnish Social Democratic Party. The other party abbreviations used in this paper are: NC, The National Coalition Party; SPP, The Swedish People’s Party; C, The Centre Party of Finland; CD, The Christian Democrats; TF, The True Finns; G, The Green League of Finland; LA, The Left Alliance.



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The General Overview of the Statements Concerning Aliens Act Memorandum), although formally ‘heard’ in the preparatory process, has not been discussed and considered in the committees. This indicates that extensiveness of the hearing process does not seem to correlate with any measurable increase in the political power or influence of the expert organisations that were heard. Moreover, of the few NGO-mediated revisions acknowledged and initially supported by the committees (such as the removal of the anomalous right to appeal from the Finnish Immigration Service or the right for recently graduated students to extend their stay while seeking employment), most failed to influence the letter of the law. In light of this, the official rhetoric of laudation pertaining to the role and the impact of this hearing-process in the preparation of the Aliens Act of 2004 can be disputed. A key into understanding the nature of this highly selective incorporation of elements from the hearing process into the statute can be found in the Othering and national unity producing discursive practices visible in the preparatory process – especially to the extent that similar discursive practices appear in the parliamentary and media debates. This boundary-work of national unity exhibits a unifying welfare state rationale. However, this boundary-work does not commonly manifest itself as direct opposition to some concrete or explicit policy measures. Rather, the impediments it creates for integrative accommodations tend to get formulated as assertions for distinct and particular forms of national unity that can then be used as a basis for various policy measures. One of the paradoxes of these assertions of unity is that this unity is simultaneously perceived as independently existing but also requiring support from the state in the form of an officially articulated legislative regime that alleviates the impact of the supposedly immigrant-induced increase in heterogeneity. In the following we identify four discursive frames manifesting this topdown rationale of a national legal control of the perceived immigration-induced heterogenisation. An awareness of the national unity discourses that consistently frame immigration debates on various levels enables critique and alterations in a way that can anticipate some of the most typical hindrances that the welfare-state context may facilitate in the development of a more accommodative integration regime. Our material points to the conclusion that immigration is regarded as a catalyst in the heterogenisation of values, which advances societal change and inequity and that attains specific negative attention in the analyzed discourses. We suggest that it is against this tendency that national unity is being reinforced with four key discourses that span the top-down continuum from the preparation in the ministries, to the parliamentary debates, to debates in media and internet fora. The four discursive frames considered in our analysis can be illustrated and linked together as indicated in the graph below:

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Figure 1: Top-down discourses exhibiting unity-producing rationale in a welfare-state context

The first frame we call ‘instrumentalism' since there appears to be an inclination to portray the immigration question as one of instrumental management of pros and cons in which minimising the cons gets a significant priority. An example of the use of this frame can be found in the account of Minister of Interior Rajamäki, who first presents the governmental bill to the parliament. According to Rajamäki, reaping the benefits of immigration must be subject to minimising its ill effects to the greatest possible extent: [T]he positive aspects of the cross-border migration flows had to be capitalised on while keeping its ill effects as small as possible. [...] The government considers it important that the motion for the Aliens Act will be given to the parliament [...] as soon as possible with the aforementioned justification. (PTK 40/2003 vp) (a).

While it is only logical to try to minimise the ill effects of any societal phenomenon, the direction of this instrumentalism is significant. Namely, a rationale in which minimising the disadvantages would be subject to receiving the maximal benefits from immigration, forms a scenario very different from the one proposed by Rajamäki where reaping any benefits is first and foremost subject to minimising the perceived disadvantages. This primacy of averting ill effects amounts to a markedly assimilationist hierarchy in the conceptualisation of the administration of immigrant affairs. It is also strictly at odds with the more multiculturalist accounts – favoured by many minority NGOs – that regard sustainable immigration as primarily a process



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of give-and-take.9 Rajamäki’s address suggests that the prudent way to organise immigration is rooted minimising the ‘gives’ rather than maximising the ‘takes’. This strategy suggests that the official stance emphasising national unity is not particularly keen to embrace the aspect of mutual exchange and compromise in immigration, even when there are some quantifiable assets to be secured. The second frame, solidarity, pertains to a common, ostensibly civic (i.e. nonethnically based) unity which is regarded as an important means for limiting sociocultural stratification. This is a highly salient frame to be considered here because, as noted earlier, stratification as a central negative effect from societal heterogenisation is commonly interpreted as being due to increased immigration. Juxtaposition of national security and the immigrants’ rights in the preparatory material is a clear manifestation of this assimilationist solidarity frame. Rajamäki nails down this dichotomy in passing: The most fundamental aim [of the revision of the Aliens Act] has been to find a balanced whole where Finnish internal security as well as the rights of the alien residents and immigrating aliens are taken into consideration. (PTK 40/2003 vp) (b).

While Rajamäki argues that it is possible to balance between the two considerations, the fact that he regards them as the opposing ends of a spectrum is telling. Since Rajamäki does not consider it necessary to explicate why and how exactly national security requires compromises pertaining to immigrants' rights and vice versa, one can only assume that the connection is somehow direct and self-evident; that the existence of an immigrant minority population with a wide range of rights is in and of itself a challenge to national security in terms of the security of a particular form of nation — the allegedly shared experience of security in Finnishness. The validity of this assessment is reinforced in the study by the Finnish Institute of Migration, ordered by the Ministry of Labour in 1999 and used as background information in the preparatory process also for the Aliens Act of 2004. In defining the term ‘ethnocentrism’ as the willingness to live without social disruptions caused by the presence of outsider practices, the governmental document also bluntly states: ‘Finns are mostly ethnocentrists’ (Ministry of Labour, 15.9.1999). This perceived ethnocentrism as a commonly shared trait in the electorate renders Rajamäki's curtness intelligible. An inflow of immigrants with a set of rights (also cultural in nature) does challenge the security of the continuity of certain national practices to the extent that they have enabled by the relatively homogenous ethnic background (such as singing religious hymns in festivities in public schools). These practices are, by definition, attributed an inherent value within an ethnocentric mindset. However, what makes solidarity a problematic discursive frame is that emphasis on ‘solidarity’

9 See, for instance, Taylor 1992; Kymlicka 1995.

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may entail support for practices and ideas that are only indicative of a pre-existing solidarity and as such possibly everything but solidarity-building. The third discursive frame, ‘tradition of consensuality’, is perhaps the most complex of the frames and refers to a practice that has for decades been considered central in Nordic decision-making based on proportional representation (see, for example, Lepola 2010). Our data indicates it is also commonly invoked as an element reproducing national solidarity. Indeed, the power-sharing and majority-restricting elements considered to be in the core of consensualism10 do have many links to bridging solidarity functions (see, for instance, Schuller, Baron and Field 2000:10). The practical reality is somewhat different, however. While the preparatory material of the Aliens Act that seeks to portray the traditional Finnish decision-making system as one incorporating consensuality at its core, the attempts to apply such principles in more heterogeneous and diverse contemporary contexts are questionable at best. Legislative counsellor Jorma Kantola – the civil servant in the Ministry of Interior in charge of the preparation of the Aliens Act – challenges the critique according to which minority opinions were not acknowledged in preparation with a particularly idiosyncratic argument: Some NGOs have been disappointed in the Aliens Act claiming that it failed to note opinions expressed by the minorities, but that is not true. All statements were duly noted. But it is not easy to implement minority opinions when the majority disagrees. (Interview of Legislative Councellor Jorma Kantola from the Ministry of Interior in 5.12.2008) (c).

This indicates that while the importance of this consensual tradition of decisionmaking is asserted in the studied discourses, the actual history of relatively high ethnic homogeneity furnishes the system with a distinct majoritarian bias. Instead of forming new ways to conceptualise and implement consensualism in a more heterogenised societal setting, old ways of governance are still referred to in terms of ‘consensualism’. This means that power sharing is understood only as a practice taking place among the various factions inside a pre-existing sphere of solidarity but quickly skipping the invitations to mutual compromises by the immigrant Other that appears external to the sphere of solidarity. A similar dichotomy between hearing a member of a minority group and acting upon what is heard is present in many places in the Act itself. A good example of this is presented in a memo by the Administrative committee stressing the importance ‘to evaluate the entirety of the child’s best interests, also by taking into consideration the opinions, wishes and individual needs of the child, where appropriate [...]’ (HaVM 4/2004 vp) (d). While hearing minority members in issues concerning them has

10 For a distinction between the ideal types of majoritarian and consensus democracies, see Lijphart 1984.



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certain legitimising value, the substantial purpose for hearing a minority (member) both in preparation and implementation of a law remains unclear when weighted against this allegedly consensual, but actually majoritarian practice. To the extent that the officially recorded minority perspectives coincide with the majority ones, the practice of hearing minorities does create a semblance of a multiculturally minded administrative process. It is, therefore, only when the minority views would challenge the majority's way, where the national security is nested (as Rajamäki alluded), that the assimilative bias we suggest can be observed. The last frame, governmentality, is not related to any Foucauldian framework. Rather, governmentalism entails the norm of wilful subjection to the decisions made by the government. This norm is legitimised, in part, through the assertions of consensuality in a political decision-making system, thus establishing a threshold for any objections against purportedly commonly reached decisions. Effectively, governmentalism as a discursive frame attaches a strong positive, republican value in yielding to administrative control by a paternalist welfare-state. This is established by portraying such control as adding to the person’s own capabilities to exercise power through the state. This value of governmentality is highly desirable from the instrumentalist point of view, because the norm of submission sustains a power-wise economical form of governance. The issues concerning the well-being of the immigrant minorities that the parliamentary committees raise are commonly considered possible to be remedied through relatively paternalistic state-mediated interventions. Such interventions, of course, belong to the core operating modes of the welfare state, which is sometimes portrayed as the ‘People’s Home’ (Esping-Andersen 1990:67-69) and are not peculiar to Finnish immigration policy per se. This fact, nevertheless, only underlines the saliency of these welfare considerations in the endeavour to integrate immigrants into a welfare-state. The motion for an alternative Aliens Act by Esko-Juhani Tennilä (LA), although opposed by the Administrative parliamentary committee, suggested an exemplary paternal expansion. According to him, in labour disputes where a foreign citizen is a party, the state capabilities to intervene should be expanded by effectually allocating many minor complainant offences under public prosecution by furnishing the labour market organisations with the right to sue (LA 163/2003 vp). It is worth noting that here Tennilä argues for corporative representation of immigrants in courts instead of a legally protected right for the immigrants to seek legal counsel from the said organisations. It seems therefore that the measure is not primarily intended to help immigrants to integrate but rather to ‘take care' of them, while also making it more risky for corporations to hire foreign labour in comparison to native workers. This case suggests that the accentuation of the paternalist tendencies of this ‘welfare Finnishness' is seen as more legitimate when applied to the immigrant minority population. While extrapolation from a single case is always subject to many caveats, in the light of these considerations, it becomes interesting to assess in more

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detail the extent to which immigration is used to expand the scope the welfare state's corporatist responsibilities.11 It must be noted that while this fourfold framework is illustrated through examples from the preparatory legislative context, each of the contexts – the legal jargon, the parliamentarians’ performances and the mediated civic debate – would enable quite divergent ways to interpret the frames. This means, of course, that using a unique framework for each of these contexts could also be justified. However, as we will illustrate in the following, the four national unity discourses identified do permeate through the dimensions we analyse, even if they manifest in different forms depending on the context. Moreover, we do not seek to exhaustively describe the three dimensions but rather look for similarities between them that are pertinent to national unity constructions in a welfare state context. Therefore, the uniform application of this four-fold framework allows us to pursue this goal and show how exactly this welfare state rationale of national unity can delimit the ways immigration questions are debated at various levels of society.

8.3 Parliamentarians’ constructions of national unity through the state It is commonly accepted that the plenary discussions of the parliament have little relevance to the policy-level of actual political decision-making. The debates serve other functions — those of political performance, symbolic representation, and public ideological and argumentative contestation (see Pekonen 2008, Turja 2008). Taking this understanding of the parliamentary discussions as the point of departure, this section examines claims made about the proper role of the state vis-à-vis immigration and foreigners in the plenary debates on the 2004 Aliens Act12, complemented by an analysis of the 1999 Integration Act from roughly the same time period.13 In total, the

11 An alternative way to conceptualize the immigrants’ role in the development of the welfare state is to see immigrant minorities as a catalyst through which a variety of conflicting Finnish agendas can be advanced. For instance, the next section considers Paula Kokkonen’s (NC) speech (PTK 74/2002 vp) where Kokkonen warns of the mistake of building the integration system into ‘another totalitarian system, building of which we have been too fond of.’ This could be read as an integration-mediated argument for dismantling some of the existing welfare structures considered by the right wing parties as ‘totalitarian’. 12 As a measure to restrict the size of the material, debates on the government bill (HE 265/2002 vp), which expired due to the parliamentary elections in 2003, were not included. 13 A follow-up debate on the Government Report on the implementation of the law (VNS 5/2002, HaVM 20/2002), 5.2.2003. In contrast to the Aliens Act debates, this debate stems from the time before the 2003 general elections. The debate was included in the material in order to diversify the empirical base. Nevertheless, the Integration Act debate constitutes only a small share of the overall text material and is consequently drawn on less than the Aliens Act debates.



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empirical material covers six debates of various lengths from a fourteen month period in 2003–2004. The material contains over two hundred addresses by almost seventy parliamentarians. Fourteen parliamentarians feature as especially active debaters in this material, most participants addressing the floor only once or twice. The purpose of the parliamentary debate on the Integration Act was to approve a government implementation report; the discussion largely deals with general aspects of good immigrant integration and contains relatively few addresses which are confrontational in tone. The proposed bill for the Aliens Act is a matter of a different nature. The material is saturated by a persistent disagreement about a few different aspects of the law, especially issues related to asylum seekers from the ‘safe countries', the ‘grey economy' and the access of foreign labour to certain seasonal jobs without work permits. Other recurrent themes include foreign degree students' possibilities to stay in Finland for work and the rights of asylum seeking minors. While several parliamentarians expressed trust in Minister Rajamäki's leadership, some criticised both the bill and the preamble for shortcomings. It is acknowledged in the discussion that much of the disagreement springs from the difference in values and priorities between those who stress the security and economics of the nation-state and those who take human rights as their point of departure (see Hiltunen (SD) in PTK 39/2004). In the following, we aim at detecting how the four frames established in the first section of this chapter are present in the debate material. We seek to demonstrate how parliamentarians construct aims and roles for the state, emphasising the frames identified earlier. In the empirical data covered in this section, these frames translate into: 1) solidarity towards Finns (selective solidarity), 2) calculative management of migration (instrumentalism), 3) the strong embrace of the state (governmentality), and 4) conceptions of the sound decision-making process (tradition of ‘consensualism’). While the relationship between the discourses within our set of data remains as suggested in the previous section, the frames are discussed in a different order in this section than in sections two and four. This is because the parliamentarians typically debate in a manner that establishes solidarity towards fellow citizens (or towards the ‘weak refugees’ as in the counter-discourse) as the justification for the reasoning within other discursive frames. The qualities of a sound political process, on the other hand, receive relatively little attention in this material, and thus, that frame is discussed last. Moreover, we employ an approach which concentrates especially on talk that represents migration as a source of problems for Finland beyond most other challenges the country has to face. In order to complement the main analysis, we also point out some instances of parliamentarians proposing alternative conceptions to the dominant ways of discussing the topics at hand.

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8.3.1 National solidarity Growing international migration increasingly challenges states to deal with the question of who the state is responsible to protect and care for. Struggles to reinforce old boundaries of solidarity and establish new ones are also present in the Finnish parliament. Notably, the debates on the Aliens Act reveal two distinct approaches: the idea that as a sovereign nation Finland can legitimately care more for Finns than for immigrant Others, and a challenge to this discourse which emphasises wider responsibilities, international conventions and human rights. Ulla Anttila (The Green League, PTK 39/2004 vp) formulates this latter position neatly: ‘As to if Finland is quite a separate state […] I don’t myself quite believe in it.’ (e). This more rights-oriented way of arguing about the relationship between the Finnish state and foreigners cannot be described as marginal as it appears as a strongly defended line of argumentation alongside the dominant, more restrained view of the state’s responsibilities. Due to our analytic focus, however, we concentrate below on describing the dominant frame of national solidarity. The task of this parliament [...] is to take care of our own citizens. In certain situations, taking care of our own citizens provides that we receive [...] foreign workers [and] refugees [and] take care of them. It’s a part of the whole. But [...] the primary task is that we in this hall decide first and foremost on the problems of Finnish people. – Ahti Vielma, NC (PTK 39/2004 vp) (f).

Finland and Finns always have the right to decide who and how many come here. It is our task and our right in this country, as the Turkish have in Turkey, Slovaks in Slovakia and Swedes in Sweden. This is a national question. – Timo Soini, TF (PTK 39/2004 vp) (g).

In a world where the state has lost many of its previous powers to control movements of capital and means of production, the management of people seems to lend itself to the discursive reproduction of sovereignty, a conception evident in the quote by Timo Soini above. According to the MPs following this line of argument, national self-interest – aiming at the best possible (economic) outcome for Finns – is natural (e.g. Zyskowicz PTK 39/2004 vp). In a very clear form, this preference is manifested in claims that labour immigration should not be excessively encouraged or at all considered as long as there are Finns out of work (e.g. Rönni 39/2004 vp). Correspondingly, the countries of emigration are portrayed as sovereign entities, and recruitment from areas that suffer from emigration is condemned. This view can be exemplified by a quote from a Social Democratic MP in the Integration Act debate who establishes that ‘it is not either in the interest of Finland that we would coax the best work force of the small Estonia to come here, rather it [the work force] should be there, taking care of patriotic duties.’ (Skinnari PTK 195/2002 vp) (h). Parliamentarians also attach themselves to the frame of national solidarity in less explicit ways. The fact that Finnish citizens are consistently referred to in



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the parliamentary debates simply as Finns (suomalainen) – a word also bearing a connotation of Finnish ethnicity – connects the idea of solidarity between citizens of a state to solidarity between people of shared ethnicity (see Lepola 2000). Pride in the nationally developed structures, distinctiveness of other cultures and the priority of the current arrangements (in contrast to new ones) are hinted at in expressions such as ‘rules of the game of the Finnish labour market’, ‘norms of Finnish society’ or ‘becoming a part of the normal Finnish every-day life’, when appearing in contexts where the idea would be comprehensible without the national attribute or could, for the sake of the main point, be replaced by another word (e.g. ‘rules of the good working life’). The idea of putting the Finns first runs through most of the other topics discussed in this section; in particular, this idea is clear in both the discourse of costs and gains of immigration and in that about racism.

8.3.2 Costs and gains The costs-and-gains frame is frequently employed in the debates. Calculative approaches to migration and diversity appear in the material as references both to positive potential and to negative expenses. While it is possible to see the references to ‘resources’ as opposed to articulations of the ‘costs’, the two approaches share the logic of measurability and rationality. Partly, the economic-rationality discussion relates to the efficiency of the public systems – for example claims that the municipal economies should not be burdened further or that it would cost little to expand service in English. However, the parliamentarians also try to assess the qualities of migrants. While the economic potential carried by migrants is particularly lucidly acknowledged in the Integration Act debate, the concern about costs is pervasive in the debates on the Aliens Act. The discourse of direct gains incorporates articulations of the need to import experts and specific groups of skilled workers in order for Finland to perform economically well. This point is presented in a straight-forward manner, and extends to foreign degree students, whose possibilities to stay for a job-search in Finland after graduation are restricted by rigid residence permit rules. Not being able to stay to work renders the investment into these people’s (often tuition-free) education unproductive. A more subtle register for articulation comes into play when considering the potential gains related to migrants who are currently outside the labour market. For those who emphasise the value of migrants, the arguments deal with the future needs at hand, recognition of the skills instead of mistrusting applicants with a foreign background, and seeing education of immigrants as an investment rather than as a cost. This idea of resources that are yet to be discovered is captured in a quote by a Centre MP:

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Finland does have a comparably short immigration history. Maybe that’s why we are not yet fully capable of recognising and utilising the social, linguistic and cultural know-how brought by immigrants. Taking into productive use of this existing but untapped resource would serve Finland on various fronts. – Paula Lehtomäki, C, (PTK 195/2002) (i).

Things get more complicated when we turn to the cost-side, since not all costs are equally negatively loaded. Even promoters of the strictest entry policy are quick to underline that those in ‘real distress’ should be allowed to stay. To discern between the worthy and the scam asylum seekers is one of the core elements of the costs discourse pertaining to individual migrants. MPs engaging in a disapproval of the undeserving asylum seekers, operate with clear categories of ‘real’ and ‘unreal’, as illuminatingly expressed by a Social Democratic MP: If only someone would bring [to light] the figure in a quite straight forward way and tell the truth about who are real refugees and who have only come in the hope of better [life] [...]. – Tero Rönni, SD, (39/2004 vp) (j).

Legitimate distress is not often very thoroughly defined by those referring to it. The expression ‘life in danger’ appears in this connection (Soini PTK 45/2004 vp), clearly not implying endangered subsistence due to economic or social but political reasons. It is clear, nevertheless, that the vast majority of asylum seekers are seen by these debaters as undeserving and directly consuming the public budget. For example, the Central and Eastern European Roma may be discriminated against, but not persecuted – an understanding which a few parliamentarians, nevertheless, do strongly challenge. The argument of those focussed on the false asylum cases has two facets. On the one hand, the welfare provision to ungrounded asylum seekers is claimed to translate directly into diminished public expenditure on deserving Finns. On the other hand, the resources of the reception system are viewed as relatively stable since the sluggishness of granting protection to those worthy of it is said to be caused by the burden of processing the bogus applications: ‘The more we have people groundlessly applying for asylum, who only have arrived in order to seek access our social welfare, the less resources we are left with to receive those individuals who would really be in need of asylum.' (Hemmilä, NC, PTK 39/2004 vp, see also Paajanen and Oinonen in the same debate) (k). These calculations construct the asylum seeker as an ultimately immoral individual who whittles away the welfare of Finns in need and stands in the way of a deserved new life of the few truly persecuted applicants. In a similarly dual argument, the substandard wages paid to foreign workers are referred to both as a violation of the rights belonging to the foreigners themselves (cf. worthy asylum seekers) and a reason for the economic suffering of many Finnish workers (see PTK 16/2004).



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8.3.3 The strong embrace of the state Closely related to the frame discussed above, the next frame relates to the understanding of the state as a potent actor capable of governing and administering various aspects of life successfully. This notion of the internally strong and legitimate state manifests in claims by the parliamentarians which call for more state responsibility within Finnish society, at times to the extent that these wishes could be characterised as paternalist. Responsibility is notably called for in relation to two themes: the preservation of high morals of the citizens through state regulation, and the education of immigrants. It is very important to act against the grey economy, because if it is allowed to grow [...] it almost inevitably erodes Finnish working morals, Finnish ethics, our conduct. This particularly high ethics, that taxes are paid and fines are paid [...] has, after all, been born in the course of hundreds of years. This kind of moral ethics can also weaken relatively quickly if space is given. – Kari Uotila, Left Alliance (PTK 16/2004 vp) (l).

The claim to protect the morals of Finns appears to address two topics, one related to work and the other to racism. Firstly, a clear division is established between orderly Finnish work and the ‘wild’, ‘grey’ economy attached to foreign workers. This is expressed, among other instances, by Matti Kangas’ (LA) illustrative expression ‘ungoverned immigration messes up the labour market’ (PTK 40/2003 vp) (m). His choice of verb [‘sotkea’, to stain] carries a connotation to dirt thus linking disorder and impurity (see Douglas 2005 [1966]), the potential for which the labour migrants carry within themselves. In general, the Finnish nationality of the employers allegedly committing breaches of laws and agreements is not referred to. This pattern is, however, broken by a Left Alliance representative, stating that it is the Finnish employers who exploit labourers legally entering Finland (Laakso (LA), PTK 40/2003 vp). This address can be read as an alternative counter-position (capitalist–worker) to the one focussed on nationality (Finns–foreigners). The morality of ethnic Finns is further presented as precarious and threatened by outside forces through the references to racism. Racism is called a ‘sickness’ (Tiusanen, PTK 99/2003 vp) which should be strongly objected to – and the means proposed is the control of immigration and monitoring of foreigners within the country. It is intriguing that the alleged prevalence of racism can be drawn on in this discussion to make legitimate claims about restrictive policy. To try to discern whether the talk about racism demonstrates a genuine concern for discrimination or whether racism is simply rhetorically employed as a deterrent is not of relevance for our analysis. In the addresses concerned with racism, both the ‘grey’ foreign work force and the groundless asylum seekers present a moral hazard: It is argued or feared that ‘the people’ (Finns) cannot accept the public spending on the asylum system in which many applicants are not eligible (but ‘ungrounded’), and/or that ‘the people’ cannot accept being offered lower pay following from the ‘dumping’ of wages due to unfair foreign competition. Consequently, the citizens are said to develop undesired

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racist attitudes and resentment towards all foreigners, including the innocent ones.14 In an extreme depiction below, a MP even links domestic violence and the management of immigration policy. Again, the state is called for to act to manage immigration to guard the well-being – the morals as well as material security – of Finns. [I]f we can handle this foreigner policy right, it will also effectively prevent the furthering of racism, which already now smoulders [...] kind of hidden in many places and in people’s minds, but doesn’t manifest itself. We [the Finns] are the kind of people that we grouse and grouse and then go behind the house and give the wife and the kids a caning, and talk like ‘I would have wanted to say it in the meeting and I should have told those people home truths for once’, but as one doesn’t dare to say, they go behind the house and do that [the caning]. [...] [W]hen racism really breaks out, like it did in Joensuu, it was indeed because too many folk [foreigners] pack in one place and people [Finns] feel they are now in an unequal position. – Tero Rönni, SD, (PTK 39/2004 vp) (n).

The racism issue was debated in conjunction with the Aliens Act. The Integration Act debates, however, show another side to the frame that highlights state involvement in the citizens’ lives. Here, the state is attached to connotations of a benign actor with responsibilities towards the education of newcomers. The Integration Act particularly concerns resident foreigners who are in weak positions in society – individuals with a refugee background, for example. Unlike the Aliens Act debates, the right to stay is not disputed in the Integration Act debate, and the discussion revolves around the conditions for the newcomers’ ‘integration’ into society. In other words, while the most debated type of immigrant in the Aliens Act was a scheming asylum seeker, the ‘protagonist’ of the Integration Act debate is presented as rather inoffensive. In fact, these migrants are often expected to have very low capabilities. Making an Integration Plan is, for example, said to aim at ‘giving the immigrant real possibilities to learn how to manage one’s own life and attain the skill and ability to make a living in Finland’ (Tiura (NC), PTK 195/2002, our emphasis) (o). The immigrants are to be schooled, cultivated, made aware of their position as citizens in the society and taught to trust the public authorities as Finns do. The role of the state thus becomes defined primarily as one of a caring agent especially towards youth and immigrant women who care for their children at home. Nevertheless, the control function – the obligatory nature of adaptation to Finnish society – is also occasionally highlighted. For example, the leader of the True Finns party suggests it would be best to assign an ‘individual [...] overseer to each immigrant starting in an integration programme’ (Soini (TF), PTK 195/2002 vp).

14 With different emphases and angles, see e.g. Karhu PTK 39/2004 vp, Kangas PTK 40/2003 vp, Lahtela, E. PTK 39/2004 vp, Peltomo PTK 40/2003 vp, Salo PTK 39/2004 vp, Satonen PTK 39/2004 vp, Soini PTK 45/2004 vp, Tennilä PTK 45/2004 vp, Rajamäki 39/2004 vp.



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There is also a focus on the need for the public system to be perfected, especially in relation to coordination between offices and levels. In the following quote, it can be noted that even a vocal NC representative, who would normally call for some form of state retrenchment, actually expresses her support for the state’s involvement in integration work together with the third sector and the ‘integree’ him/herself (see Tiura, PTK 195/2002 vp). The strong system orientation is also critically noted by the parliamentarians themselves, as in the quote below: It feels like, to officials, ministries and various organisations, the immigrants are only compulsory objects of existence who have to be guided or advised to have these [Integration] Plans made. – Heli Paasio, SD (PTK 195/2002 vp) (p).

8.3.4 The sound political process The frame of ‘consensualism’ refers to a tradition of doing politics that is particularly pertinent to Finland as a Nordic welfare state (Lijphart 2008:93). This tradition highlights inclusion in the policy process that, nevertheless, does not necessarily lead to a decision and output that would accommodate minority views. Rather, the bargaining takes place between alternatives backed by the powerful mainstream actors. This ambivalence is illustrated within the parliamentary debates material in Minister Rajamäki's presentation of the Aliens Act bill (PTK 40/2003). The bill had been presented once already, but had expired due to general elections. When bringing the bill to the parliament for the second time, Rajamäki referred to the extensive hearing round conducted previously and motivates not repeating that part of the preparation. His argument was that the Government was already aware of the different viewpoints of the various NGOs and others they had ‘actively heard' (although the validity of this can be questioned on the basis of the findings in the previous section). On the one hand, much time and effort had been put into collecting these views, but on the other, the Minister seemed to regard the long preparation procedure as a burden rather than an asset. The Integration Act debates also contain a few references to ‘immigrant participation' which relate to this frame. Claims are made for more active participation and cooperation with public authorities by immigrants, but it is left open to what this participation would mean in terms of influence. An example of this type of talk can be found in an address by a Social Democratic representative who claims that ‘civic and immigrant associations should be given the possibility to participate in the preparation and implementation of the municipal integration programme, if they so wish' (Kähkönen, PTK 195/2002 vp) (q). This proposition seems to promise much but does not suggest concrete ways of putting such ideas into practice. The only exception to the pattern within our material can be found in an account by a Left Alliance

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representative who specifically considers quota based representation in municipal committees for migrants and refugees arranged through the parties (Turtiainen, PTK 195/2002 vp). The fact that no other comparably concrete suggestions appear in this debate indicates that consensual ways to implement ‘immigrant integration' are not considered in the parliament.

8.4 A macro-societal approach to immigration topics – media discourses and internet debates The media stand in a dialogical relation with the social environment, where institutionalised practices are conceptualised and discourses of the everyday-life reified – simultaneously functioning as societal actors per se. For the purpose of studying grass root level rhetoric, however, media articles represent only a narrow selection of opinions, as letters to the editor pass through strict qualification systems. The possibility of expressing opinions publicly through print media is thus restricted, and this lack of anonymity strains out the harshest and the most polarizing attitudes. Internet-forums therefore provide a better means for this purpose of ‘venting’. To gain insight in the public discourses we have analyzed both media articles and internet debates related to the media topics – as the same themes appear at both levels, we do not present these separately. Since our media material is related to legislative aspects and revolves around societal practices, it is important to emphasise the specificity of the findings of this study – media discourses related to immigration and Finnishness in general might address different aspects. To a large extent, the analyzed texts approach the topic through macro-level aspects of immigration discourses, focussing on structures and bypassing micro-sociological issues. The societal changes occurring in the period, from 1999 to 2009, are partly visible in the media articles. The terminology used in the earlier texts is unclear and seems unfamiliar to the writers, as also pointed out concerning the Parliament debates. Refugee, immigrant, foreigner and migrant15 are largely used synonymously, even within the same text. A change can be observed during the discussions on the Aliens Act 2004, where also the frames and approaches to the theme are more versatile. The vocabulary used in 2009 shows a more ‘professional’ approach. The concepts are more precise and the Finnish term for integration, ‘kotouttaminen’ [literally: homing], relatively new in 1999, is in the 2009 texts used with confidence and familiarity. Signs of uncertainty concerning certain concepts, however, continue to exist in the articles from 2009.

15 [Pakolainen, maahanmuuttaja, ulkomaalainen ja muuttaja].

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8.4.1 The meta-discourse: Finnishness through boundaries Differences in the discourses appear between the legislative processes; when discussing the Immigration Act – both 1999 and 2009 – immigration is conceptualised through differentiation, positioning ‘immigrants’ as distinct from the notion of Finnish society, as noted also within the parliamentary debates. The dichotomisation is not expressed explicitly, but is rather present as a tacit assumption; a perception of ‘the immigrant’ as the stranger16, the Other — essentially different and separate from the familiar and natural — ‘Finnish society' (see Pietikäinen 2000; Horsti 2005). This aspect is not as visible in the texts discussing the Aliens Act (2004), where the topic is approached from a broader perspective and placed in a less nationally dominated context, e.g. by comparing European policies and discussing supra-national borders and Schengen. This is in principle self-evident, as the notion of integration directly relates to the society in question. The following quotes illustrate how the conception of the ‘immigrant’ is dissociated from the conception of Finnishness. To get a job is almost the only way for an adult refugee to get involved in the Finnish every-day life and to adapt to their new country [...] when learning the ways of the country. (HS -Pääkirjoitus, 15.7.1999) (r).

During the waiting period, the immigrants do not necessarily get any information about Finnish society. [...] ‘As a premise, people do want to integrate.’ (HS quoting Ministry of Internal Affairs official -Kotimaa, 21.12 2008) (s).

Evergreen stereotypes of ‘the immigrant’ are present in the differentiating rhetoric – there are however clear differences between the rhetoric in media texts and internet forums; in the articles the stereotyping is subtle, in the forum comments openly articulate racist opinions. Stereotypes appear as binary relations coupled to their respective poles: ‘the lazy immigrant’ or ‘the helpless immigrant’ vs. ‘the capable society’; and the counter-discourse ‘the capable immigrant’ vs. ‘the structural failures of society’. Thus ‘the immigrant’ is always mirrored against the perception of ‘the Finnish state’ as an authority. The stereotype of ‘the lazy immigrant’, an image appearing also in the parliamentary debates, concerns a view of immigrants as unwilling to work, lazy at learning the Finnish language or disinterested in co-operating with the system, which is perceived as striving to ‘help the immigrant integrate’. This role is prescribed to the Finnish state also in relation to the view of the immigrant as feckless and incompetent.

16 The stranger, in the terminology of Georg Simmel, becomes connected to a group simultaneously being distanced from a We-collective. This group is perceived through something similar to a normality principle – the norm is set by what is considered to represent the own collective, the excluded are represented through their difference. (see Simmel 1981.)

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The dichotomy of ‘the capable immigrant’ vs. ‘the structural failures of society’ is a counter discourse within the same macro-level thinking, where the system is blamed for unsuccessful employment and integration of immigrants. When discussed, the poor employment situation of highly educated immigrants is addressed by quoting a researcher stating that the main reason for the problem is the Integration Act that has been in place for ten years (HS Kaupunki, 10.6.2009). The notion of the immigrant is thus mainly positioned in relation to the Finnish society as a structure and to a lesser extent in relation to the notion of a Finnish population – Finnishness is mainly shown as an institutionalised political frame. In the following sub-sections we examine central frameworks through which immigration is approached – these frameworks are partly overlapping and not mutually exclusionary, but clarify different aspects of the macro-level orientated discourses on immigration. 8.4.2 Management of the pros and cons of immigration – the instrumentalist frame Integration is important from the national economy point of view because non-employed immigrants only cause society expenditure and do not pay any taxes. (HS -Kotimaa, 21.12.2008) (t).

A frame visible at all levels – from the legislative processes to the political debates, media rhetoric and forum discussions – is the resource/expense way of approaching immigration questions. Within this instrumentalist frame, the frame of calculated Finnishness, immigrants are objectified and function as statistical figures or conceptual tools concerning societal management – as a means for the economic success of the society or as an expensive and demanding burden. Immigration is presented as a resource only in regard to economic benefits – other aspects are addressed in only a few texts from 2004. It is emphasised that immigrants become contributors to the economic development of society through successful integration. The main positioning of the notion of immigrants as resources is in relation to the need of the labour market as potentially contributing to the economic growth of the state. Regardless of the positive tone within this resource-approach, immigrants are in most cases objectified – statistical figures, denominated as, for example, ‘a brilliant potential of immigrant background' (HS Pääkirjoitus 16.3.2009): [...] a twenty-year old youngster brings 85000 FMk to the Finnish economy, a trained engineer, doctor or a nurse approximately 2,5 Million FMk. (HS -Kotimaa 19.1.1999) (u). According to the South Savo TE-center, the total need of the labour force is 75 000 persons in SouthEastern Finland by 2015. (HS -Kotimaa, 31.1.2004) (v). Among the immigrants there are persons who really would like to work in jobs that correspond to their profession and for whom the search for work could be made easier by changing the legislation. [...] This means that we lose many good tax payers. (HS Internet forum; Alias: Ystävyyttä ja tasaarvoa kaikille, 9.6.2009) (w).

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The other side of this instrumentalist approach is the representation of immigrants as societal expenses; since in the Parliamentary debates, immigration is conceptualised in terms of costs and gains. The aim within this rhetorical strategy is to support the argument with statistical means. The figures are not mere numbers; they verify the viewpoints of the writers. The implementation of the Integration Act is presented as an economic burden and a huge effort overloading the municipalities with work and responsibility. About 30 Million euro are used annually on immigrant education. (HS -Kotimaa, 21.12.2008) (x). The local authorities have time until the end of September to make a plan for each who cannot get work by themselves. [...] Money was not allocated to the municipalities. (HS -Kotimaa, 31.8.1999) (y).

The rhetoric of the internet forums is more polemical. Immigrants are depicted as, by definition, incapable of contributing to Finnish society. Specifically concerning refugees the focus on expenses is central: the refugee is seen bringing in nothing and costing a lot. This aspect, clearly posing a problem for a development-oriented approach, is parried by emphasising the aspect of asylum seekers as not being permanent residents. The refugees have probably little such work experience that they could apply here. (HS Internet forum; Alias: Ei koske käytännössä pakolaisia, 9.6.2009) (z). [...] the refugees are secured temporary stay and their return home is secured. They will not become residents in the municipality. (HS -Kotimaa, 22.4.1999) (aa). Education in their mother tongue is arranged for the children. ‘The children learn a foreign language fast, and this may make their return to the home country more difficult.’[...]. Adults get training to the extent that they can cope here momentarily. (Ibid., quoting Ministry of Labour official) (bb).

8.4.3 Immigration as societal threat – negotiating solidarity One conceptual angle appearing at all levels of our analysis is the notion of risks related to immigration issues from the societal perspective — both in connection to concrete problems as criminality and security, and to social cohesion, addressing the dangers of stratification and racist attitudes. A central theme in the internet debates is the hierarchical positioning of immigrants and the majority population in regard to social support; it is stressed that the responsibility of the state is primarily to cover the needs of the majority. By sarcastic statements and questions such as ‘Which country will take us highly educated and top qualified unemployed Finns and support us?' it is argued that immigrants are getting the support the majority population needs, and

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would have the primary right to receive (HS Internet forum; Alias: Mikä maa ottaa MEIDÄT, 9.6.2009) (cc). The same theme is repeated in many varying formulations: When will there be an initiative and an office for offering Finnish young people work that corresponds to education? (HS Internet forum; Alias: Koulutusta vastaavaa työtä meille suomalaisille, 9.6.2009) (dd).

This approach appears in the Aliens Act related discussions, but is less visible when discussing the Integration Act. In the latter, comparisons to problems in other European countries are brought up, emphasising the importance of preventative measures. European Immigrant Suburb Problems to be Avoided in Finland. (Heading in HS -Kotimaa, 11.1.2009) (ee). In the 1980’s, there were extremely few foreigners in Finland. There were small groups of newcomers and they were not regarded as a socio-economic threat. During the recession fears appeared that there will be a lot of them [...] (HS quoting researcher -Kotimaa, 16.9.1999) (ff).

The quote above exemplifies how racism is viewed from a cause and effect perspective within the social system orientated discursive framework of the discussions in our material, bringing in the social structures as the explanatory and underlying force.

8.4.4 Prioritising ‘us’ – the precedence of the majority Our way may not be the only right one, but it is the one that the majority of Finns want to be applied in this country. (HS Internet forum; Alias: Thors erotkoon, 2.6.2009) (gg).

This frame is applied to a vast scale of issues – integration should happen on the terms of ‘the host society’; education, subsidies and aid concerning participation in the labour market should be primarily targeted towards the majority. The decision making power over who is allowed into the country and who is allowed to stay, is the state’s, as the authority of the majority population – With certain preconditions, the state can decide who may settle in its territory (HS -Mielipide, 9.3.2004) (hh). This prioritising rhetoric was primarily present in the discussions prior to the Aliens Act, particularly in explicating the sovereignty-emphasising premise for the system of accelerated returning of asylum seekers. Minority and majority unemployment is a central theme in the internet discussions, conceptualised through conceptions of fairness and unfairness. Here the selection of ‘most qualified’ is emphasised as synonymous to a fair procedure. However, little thought is given to the cultural construction of the category of the ‘most qualified’. The consequent bias towards Finnish candidates could be avoided by adopting some

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other, perfectly reasonable conceptualisations of these qualifications in cooperation with the immigrants themselves. It is not easy to correct the situation as the unemployment of Finns is also high, but according to the law, the most qualified applicant should be chosen. (HS -Pääkirjoitus, 15.7.1999) (ii). I do well understand if an employer is reluctant to employ an immigrant. As long as we live in a market society an immigrant is more of a risk than an opportunity or possible strength to many companies. (HS Internet forum; Alias: Elämme markkinoiden ehdoilla, 9.6.2009) (jj).

8.4.5 Integration through legislative policies – immigration from a governmentalist perspective A perception of the state as the capable and trustworthy actor through which integration and other immigration-related aspects are manageable, runs through all the frames discussed in this chapter, and on all discursive levels analyzed within this study. Reified in its most distinct shape – the conception of the Finnish system within a paternalistic frame – the role of the legislative structures, as law and practice could be compared to the role of a parent, a helpful and capable actor – also capable of punishing when needed; the carrot and the stick embedded in the societal structures. Through institutionalised practices, ‘the willing immigrant’ may become a member of society, but will lose benefits if not acting in accordance with the societal premises. [...] training plans are made for the migrant. If the migrant does not want to participate in the training her/his benefits will gradually decrease (HS -Kotimaa 19.1.1999) (kk). [...] the integration legislation wisely demands that refugees are brought to a more diversified interaction with Finnish society. The newcomer commits, in exchange for the support she/he gets, to learn the language of the country, to complement her/his professional skills and acquire other necessary information to be able to make a living for her/him and participating in life in other ways. (HS Pääkirjoitus 15.7.1999) (ll).

An aspect appearing both within the parliamentary debate and the media discussion is the view on the role of the laws in question as existing primarily for the sake of the majority population. Simultaneously seen as a functional means for placing the immigrant in a majority defined position in society, these laws are perceived as concretising the duties and rights of the immigrants, thus securing authority over Otherness – the power to define the criteria for acceptance. Through measures at the decision making level, different aspects of immigration are made manageable – from ‘successful integration’ to societal membership as a means of combating racism.

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8.4.6 The media and internet discussions as a reification of the institutionalised policy-oriented discourses The media and internet discussions create a vague picture of the institutionalised integration system. It appears as simply a specific terminology – an institutionalised conceptual tool framing societal practices. The picture painted through the discussions related to ‘integration’ bears resemblance with to assimilationist view on immigration. Through the ten year range, the terminology becomes clearer and the concepts appear more familiar. However, statistics remain a central way of conceptualising immigrants, creating a picture of objectives subordinate to social structures rather than individuals and different groups of people. The approaches turn more multileveled through the temporal range – as the 1999 material talks about ‘floods of immigrants’ (HS 22.4.1999), in the later periods it is stated that ‘asylum seekers are individuals, not ‘floods’ or ‘streams’’ (HS 28.2.2004). In some texts from 2009, micro-level aspects of immigration are brought into the structure dominated discussion, introducing everyday life as an aspect of immigration and multiculturalism at the level of experience. When speaking about integration one should use as a starting point that immigrants are part of the population living in Finland and as different from each other as the rest of the population. (HS -Mielipide, 11.6.2009) (mm).

Yet, immigration continues to be largely constructed in a dichotomist relation to Finnishness, positioning the immigrant as the Other, and the member of the majority population and the Finnish state as the norm and authority. A more inclusive public sphere would require a reassessment of the standard positions, such as the ‘model Finn’, and a questioning of the essentialising trends within policy making, in favour of a more reflexive approach towards social belonging.

8.5 Concluding discussion In this article, we have briefly examined how various discursive frames pertaining to national unity have been evoked in parliamentary and media discourses revolving around immigration legislation within the past decade. We discovered that the concern with preserving a common national fabric is often expressed in terms of an external threat posed by the immigrant Other, rather than as a function ‘internally’ dividing developments. While this is interesting enough on its own, this finding should be evaluated in conjunction to the discontinuity between the readily available quantitative data on a relatively low immigrant presence (in the European context) and the sharp increase in accounts that link this presence to various threats for national identity and solidarity. A particularly lucid account of the latter is given by



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the immigration director of the Ministry of Interior who recently reiterated the often ignored fact that the current dimensions of the inflow of immigrants per se cannot result in any demographically relevant changes in Finland in the foreseeable future (HS -Mielipide, 17.8.2009). Again, the perceptions of national unity being threatened by the immigrant Other appear independent from the objectively measurable dimensions of immigration. Therefore, in order to overcome some of the nationally implemented hurdles to immigration and to the integration of immigrants, this subjectively experienced frailty in the symbolic boundaries of national unity should to be taken into account. One of the most valuable conclusions from our enquiry relates to the possibility for a researcher to discursively overcome some of the untenable and misguided convictions. Whereas measurable demographic facts play only a limited role in alleviating the fear of the Other, many of the discursive practices also contain implicit hints as to how such ethno-nationalistic discourses could possibly be developed into a direction that is more adaptive towards societal change and would better facilitate integration. Making careful use of these hints is called for in order to develop the immigration policy towards a direction more responsive to upcoming developments, without being hindered by the kind of fears for the future of national unity that can be downplayed in a different way to contextualise the necessity for these developments. Firstly, the instrumentalist mindset that attempts to weigh the pros and cons in opening and revising certain nationally determined practices is at a loss at measuring them ordinally and arguing for some losses to be an acceptable price for certain gains. The statement by the Minister of Interior Kari Rajamäki underlines this difficulty; according to him, reaping benefits must be subject to minimising problems and not the other way around. Therefore, we suggest that in presenting the benefits related to developments that may be regarded as challenging the symbolic boundaries of national unity, special emphasis should be put on scenarios that can be presented as win-win ones, rather than constantly arguing the acceptability of certain losses. While this naturally restricts the scope of benefits one can refer to, this strategy is nevertheless fruitful in the sense that it allows for focussing on instances that will actually be interpreted as beneficial through a mindset fixed on preserving solidarity that is defined in a majoritarian manner. This is particularly important concerning the evidence of the relative impotence of non-binding measures of advisory hearings, through which any, even potentially upsetting suggestions are most commonly channelled. Secondly, there is a distinct discourse through which any actual or potential structural flaws in the welfare system are discussed in terms of a lack of familiarity and competence of those who suffer from these flaws. In this discourse the Other is defined through the inability to cope with the existing structures. Therefore, it does not appear likely that arguing the existence of structural flaws by underlining the problems they cause to a population outside the nationally defined majority is a prudent way of advancing a more cosmopolitan mindset. It is rather by underlining

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the problems that are caused to both the insiders and outsiders by certain, existing policy structures that more outsiders can be brought within this vaguely defined, symbolic in-group. This is essential in order to facilitate integration on the more concrete level as well. Thirdly, and similarly to the second point, the ideas challenging the majoritarian paradigm that stresses social cohesion at the national level should not be presented as altogether external to the extant paradigm. This is likely to have repercussions as the republican understanding of national solidarity considers itself threatened by these very ideas. Rather, a more constructive approach would be to argue that many of the positive values linked to developing the existing immigration regime into a more open direction can already be found within the boundaries of the welfare-state ideology and that their implementation would also constitute a more coherent approach to an inclusive and bridging form of solidarity in an increasingly heterogenising society. This strategy would also act against the attempts to pose the ‘medicine’ as the ‘disease’ and move the revisionary ideas away from the particular focus on the existing confrontation that is being discursively built between these two ideologies. At the same time it would generate much less of the resentment that currently stems from the fear that it is these cosmopolitan developments that are currently undermining national sovereignty and the state’s authority to create public policy. What is reassuring in the Finnish context is that during the span of twelve years a slight shift in the discourse can be noticed, especially within the media. The fact that metaphors such as ‘immigrant floods’ have shifted towards an emphasis on the individuality of the immigrants is a start. However, while the media appears to pave the way for an atmosphere suitable for change towards a more cosmopolitan mindset among citizens, it still remains hardly unproblematic in Finland to welcome different cultures and their rights. Moreover, the evidence of current legislative discourse suggests that these are particularly difficult issues to viably promote within the parliamentary context of partisan politics, where no party can afford to dismiss the growing numbers of those critical towards any challenge to a republican and ethnocentrically assimilative nation-state. A change at this parliamentary level can be discursively facilitated by convincingly presenting these particularly critical groups of citizens – and the politicians and media representing them – a convincing picture of the future of national solidarity in an era of increasing societal heterogeneity that does not reaffirm the prejudices and reconstruct the confrontations discussed here. This also entails systematic expert participation in the current debate with facts that challenge existing convictions.

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References Empirical Material Section 2 HaVM 4/2004 vp, 2.4.2004 (memorandum of the Administrative parliamentary committee). Interview of Legislative Councellor Jorma Kantola from the Ministry of Interior (5.12.2008). LA 163/2003 vp, 15.12.2003 (motion for an alternative Aliens Act by Esko-Juhani Tennilä (LA)). Ministry of Interior document: Yleinen yhteenveto ulkomaalaislakityöryhmä mietinnöstä annetuista lausunnoista, 26.2.2002 (memorandum containing the general overview of the statements concerning aliens act of 2004). Ministry of Labour document: dnro 361/832/98TM, 15.9.1999 (application for continued funding for the research project: ‘Interview Study on the Employment Prospects of the Immigrants’, ordered by the Ministry of Labour). PTK 40/2003 vp, 16.6.2003 (minutes of the parliamentary plenary session). Section 3 Integration Act (Act on the Integration of Immigrants and Reception of Asylum Seekers) PTK 195/2002 vp, 5.2.2003 (Follow-up debate on the Government Report on the implementation of the Act [VNS 5/2002 vp]). Aliens Act PTK 40/2003 vp, 16.6.2003 (preliminary debate on the legislative proposal). PTK 99/2003 vp, 25.11.2003 (preliminary debate on supplementary government proposal). PTK 16/2004 vp, 26.2.2004 (preliminary debate on a legislative motion). PTK 39/2004 vp, 14.4.2004 (first reading: general debate). PTK 45/2004 vp, 21.4.2004 (first reading: detailed handling). Section 4 Helsingin Sanomat online archive of articles word search ‘kotouttamislaki’ [Integration Act] 1998–1999: 14 articles 2008–2009: 9 articles word search ‘ulkomaalaislaki’ [Alien’s Act] 2004: 118 articles Helsingin Sanomat Internet forum Discussions on the Integration Act and Aliens Act 2.6.–15.6.2009: 217 comments Conclusion Helsingin Sanomat online archive of articles Letter to the editor by Mervi Virtanen, the director of the Migration Unit in the Ministry of Interior (17.8.2009).

Literature Bail, C. A. 2008. “The Configuration of Symbolic Boundaries against Immigrants in Europe”, American Sociological Review 73(1), 37-59.

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Caponio, T. and M. Borkert, ed. 2010. Local Dimension of Migration Policymaking. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Crepaz, M. 2006. “’If you are my brother, I may give you a dime!’ Public opinion on multiculturalism, trust and the welfare state.” Pp. 92-117 in Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies, edited by K. Banting and W. Kymlicka. Oxford: OUP. Eide, E. 2008. “The Loop of Labeling. Orientalism, Occidentalism and the Cartoon Crisis.” in Transnational Media Events. The Mohammed Cartoons and the Imagined Clash of Civilizations, edited by E. Eide, R. Kunelius and A. Philips. Gothenburg: Nordicom. Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity. Favell, A. 2001. Philosophies of Integration: Immigration and the Idea of Citizenship in France and Britain. Houndmills: Palgrave. Hall, S., ed. 1997. Representation : cultural representations and signifying practices. London, SAGE. Hemerijck, A. 2004. “The Self-Transformation of the European Social Model(s)” Pp. 173-213 in Why We Need a New Welfare State, edited by G. Esping-Andersen, D. Gallie, A. Hemerijck and J. Myles. Oxford: OUP. Horsti, K. 2005. Vierauden rajat: monikulttuurisuus ja turvapaikanhakijat journalismissa. Tampere: Tampere University Press. Keskinen, S., A. Rastas and S. Tuori, ed. 2009. En ole Rasisti, mutta... Maahanmuutosta, monikulttuurisuudesta ja kritiikistä. Tampere: Vastapaino. Kymlicka, W. 2000. Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lahav, G. 2004. Immigration and politics in the new Europe: Reinventing Borders. Cambridge: CUP. Lepola, O. 2000. Ulkomaalaisesta suomenmaalaiseksi. Monikulttuurisuus, kansalaisuus ja suomalaisuus 1990-luvun maahanmuuttopoliittisessa keskustelussa. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura. Lijphart, A. 1984. Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press. __________. 2008. Thinking about Democracy. Power: Sharing and Majority Rule in Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge. Lukes, S. 1974. Power: A Radical View. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Löytty, O. 2005. ”Toiseus. Kuinka tutkia kohtaamisia ja valtaa.” Pp. 161-189 in Suomalainen vieraskirja. Kuinka käsitellä monikulttuurisuutta, edited by A. Rastas, L. Huttunen and O. Löytty. Tampere: Vastapaino. McIver, S. 2003. “Contextualising National Identity. Others, Othering and Irishness.” Pp. 43-60 in Identity Dynamics and the Construction of Boundaries, edited by B. Petersson and E. Clark. Lund: Nordic Academic Press. Paasi, A. 2002. ”Rajat ja identiteetti globalisoituvassa maailmassa.” Pp. 154-176 in Eletty ja muistettu tila, edited by T. Syrjämaa and J. Tunturi. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura. Pekonen, K. 2008. “Two Versions of Representative Talk in Finnish Parliament.” Pp. 208-229 in The Parliamentary Style of Politics, edited by S. Soininen and T. Turkka. Helsinki: Finnish Political Science Association. Pietikäinen, S. 2000. Discourses of Differentiation: Ethnic Representations in Newspaper Texts. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä. Putnam, R. 2000. Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. __________. 2007. “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century. The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture.” Scandinavian Political Studies 30(2): 137-174. Saward, M. 2006. “The Representative Claim.” Contemporary Political Theory 5(3): 297-318.

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Schuller, T., S. Baron and J. Field. 2000. “Social Capital: A Review and Critique.” Pp. 1-38 in Social Capital: Critical Perspectives, edited by S. Baron, J. Field and T. Schuller. New York: Oxford University Press. Simmel, G. 1981. Hur är samhället möjligt? - och andra essäer. Göteborg: Korpen. Soysal, Y. N. 1994. Limits of citizenship: migrants and postnational membership in Europe. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Taylor, C. and A. Gutmann, ed. 1992. Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition”. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Turja, T. 2008. “Styles of Parliamentary Speech in the Plenary Session of the Parliament of Finland.” Pp. 155-183 in The Parliamentary Style of Politics, edited by S. Soininen and T. Turkka. Helsinki: Finnish Political Science Association.

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Appendix 1: Original Quotes a) [R]ajat ylittävän muuttoliikkeen lisääntymisen myönteiset puolet oli hyödynnettävä ja samalla oli saatava siihen liittyvät haittavaikutukset niin pieniksi kuin mahdollista. […] Hallitus on pitänyt tärkeänä, että esitys ulkomaalaislaiksi saatetaan edellä mainituin perustein ja kuten alussa totesin eduskunnan käsiteltäväksi pikaisesti. b) Uudistuksen perimmäisenä tavoitteena on ollut löytää tasapainoinen kokonaisuus, jossa otetaan huomioon niin Suomen sisäinen turvallisuus kuin maahan tulevien ja maassa oleskelevien ulkomaalaisten oikeudetkin. c) Joissain yhdistyksissä ollaan oltu tyytymättömiä Ulkomaalaislakiin ja on väitetty, että siinä ei ole huomioitu vähemmistöjen näkemyksiä, mutta se ei pidä paikkaansa. Kaikki esitetyt lausunnot on otettu huomioon valmistelussa. Mutta vähemmistön linjauksia ei ole helppo toteuttaa kun enemmistö on eri mieltä. d) Lapsen etu on aina yksilöllinen ja sidottu lapsen kulloiseenkin elämäntilanteeseen. Lapsen etu tulee harkita kokonaisuudessaan ottaen huomioon mahdollisuuksien mukaan lapsen toivomukset, mielipiteet ja yksilölliset tarpeet. e) Mitä tulee siihen, onko Suomi aivan erillinen valtio [...] itse en usko tähän. f) Tämän eduskunnan keskeinen tehtävä, meidän pitää se muistaa, on huolehtiminen omista kansalaisista. Omista kansalaisistamme huolehtiminen edellyttää tietyissä tilanteissa, että me otamme tänne ja ilman muuta ulkomaalaisia työntekijöitä, pakolaisia, pidämme heistä huolen. Se kuuluu siihen kokonaisuuteen. Mutta kuten sanoin, ykkösasia on se, että me päätämme tässä salissa ennen kaikkea suomalaisten ihmisten ongelmista. g) Suomella ja suomalaisilla on aina oikeus päättää siitä, keitä tänne tulee ja kuinka paljon. Se on meidän tehtävämme ja meidän oikeutemme tässä maassa, niin kuin turkkilaisilla Turkissa, niin kuin slovakeilla Slovakiassa ja ruotsalaisilla Ruotsissa. Tämä on kansallinen kysymys. h) eikä se ole Suomen edunkaan mukaista, että me pienen Viron parasta työvoimaa yrittäisimme houkutella tänne, vaan kyllä sen pitää olla siellä hoitamassa isänmaallisia velvoitteita. i) Suomessa asuu tällä hetkellä noin 100 000 ulkomaalaista. Suomella onkin verrattain lyhyt maahanmuuttohistoria. Ehkä siitä johtuen emme osaa vielä kunnolla tunnistaa ja hyödyntää maahanmuuttajien mukanaan tuomaa sosiaalista, kielellistä ja



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kulttuurista osaamista. Tämän olemassa olevan, mutta käyttämättömän voimavaran saaminen hyötykäyttöön palvelisi Suomea monella eri rintamalla. j) Kunpa joku toisi sen luvun suoraan ja kertoisi sen totuuden, ketkä ovat todellisia pakolaisia ja ketkä ovat tulleet vain paremman uskon toivossa [po. ‘paremman elämän toivossa’? MW]. k) Mitä enemmän meillä on perusteettomasti turvapaikkaa hakevia henkilöitä, jotka ovat saapuneet maahamme pelkästään kokeilemaan sosiaaliturvaamme, sitä vähemmän meille jää resursseja ottaa vastaan niitä henkilöitä, jotka tosiasiassa olisivat turvapaikan tarpeessa. l) On erittäin tärkeää toimia harmaata taloutta vastaan, koska väkisinkin, jos se päästetään kasvamaan,[...] niin se murentaa suomalaista työmoraalia, suomalaista etiikkaa, meidän käyttäytymistämme. Tämä tällainen varsin korkea etiikka, että verot maksetaan ja sakot maksetaan [...] on syntynyt kuitenkin vuosisatojen kuluessa. Aika lyhyesti tällainen moraalietiikka voi myöskin heikentyä, jos sille tilaa annetaan. m) Vaarana on, että hallitsematon maahanmuutto sotkee työmarkkinat ja työnantajat pääsevät käyttämään hyväkseen ulkomaalaisten hädänalaista asemaa. n) [J]os me osaamme oikein hoitaa tämän ulkomaalaispolitiikan, se myöskin estää meillä hyvin tehokkaasti rasismin eteenpäintuomista, joka nyt jo kytee [...] monissa paikoissa sillä tavalla piilossa ja ihmisten mielissä, mutta se ei tule esiin. Mehän olemme semmoista kansaa, että jupistaan ja jupistaan ja sitten mennään nurkan taakse ja annetaan muijalle ja lapsille selkään, kun puhutaan, että olisi tehnyt mieli sanoa siellä kokouksessa ja olisi pitänyt sanoa sille porukalle kerrankin kunnon sanat, mutta kun ei kehdata sanoa, mennään nurkan taakse ja tehdään tämmöiset jutut. [...] [K]un tämä rasismi oikein kunnolla pääsee ryöpsähtämään, kuten Joensuussa yhdessä vaiheessa teki, kyllä se johtuu siitä, että sinne yhteen paikkakuntaan pakkautuu liikaa väkeä ja ihmiset kokevat, että he ovat nyt eriarvoisessa asemassa. o) Kotouttamissuunnitelman tarkoituksena on antaa maahanmuuttajalle tosiasialliset mahdollisuudet oppia oman elämän hallinta ja saavuttaa taito ja kyky hankkia toimeentulo Suomessa. p) Tuntuu vain, että erillisille viranomaisille, ministeriöille ja eri organisaatioille maahanmuuttajat ovat vain pakollisia olemassaolon objekteja, joita heidän täytyy ohjata taikka neuvoa, tehdä näitä suunnitelmia. q) kansalais- ja maahanmuuttajärjestöille on annettava halutessaan mahdollisuus osallistua kunnan kotouttamisohjelman valmisteluun ja täytäntöönpanoon.

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r) Työpaikka on aikuiselle pakolaiselle lähes ainoa tie päästä mukaan suomalaiseen elämänmenoon ja sopeutua uuteen kotimaahansa. [...] opittaessa maan tavalle. s) Odotusaikana maahanmuuttajat eivät välttämättä saa mitään tietoa suomalaisesta yhteiskunnasta. [...] ‘Ihmiset kyllä lähtökohtaisesti haluavat kotoutua’. t) Kotoutuminen on kansantaloudellisesti tärkeää, sillä työttömät maahanmuuttajat aiheuttavat yhteiskunnalle vain kuluja eivätkä maksa veroja. u) [...] 20-vuotias nuori tuo Suomen kansantalouteen 850000 markkaa, koulutettu insinööri, lääkäri tai sairaanhoitaja noin 2,5 miljoonaa markkaa. v) Työvoiman kokonaistarve on Etelä-Savon TE-keskuksen mukaan kaakkoisessa Suomessa vuoteen 2015 mennessä 75000 henkeä poistuman ja uusien tarpeiden korvaamiseksi. w) Maahanmuuttajissa on niitä, jotka todella haluaisivat tehdä ammattiaan vastaavaa työtä ja joille työnhaku voisi lainsäädännöllisten muutosten avulla tulla helpommaksi [...]. Eli menetämme monia hyviä veronmaksajia. x) Maahanmuuttajakoulutukseen käytetään vuodessa noin 30 miljoonaa euroa. y) Kunnilla on aikaa syyskuun loppuun tehdä suunnitelma jokaiselle, joka ei omin avuin saa työtä. [...] Rahaa kunnille ei annettu z) pakolaisilla taitaa harvemmin olla työkokemusta, jota täällä voisi soveltaa aa) [...] pakolaisille turvataan tilapäinen oleskelu ja heidän paluunsa kotiin turvataan. Heistä ei tule kunnan asukkaita bb) Lapsille järjestetään kouluopetusta äidinkielellä. ‘Lapset omaksuvat nopeasti vieraan kielen, ja se voi hankaloittaa heidän paluutaan kotimaahan’ [...]. Aikuisille suomalaista yhteiskuntaa opetetaan juuri sen verran, että he tulevat täällä tilapäisesti toimeen. cc) Mikä maa ottaa meidät suomalaiset korkeastikoulutetut huippuosaavat työttömät elätettäväkseen? dd) Milloinkohan syntyisi aloite ja virasto siihen, että suomalaisille nuorille Suomessa tarjottaisiin koulutusta vastaavaa työtä? ee) Euroopan maahanmuuttajalähiöiden ongelmat halutaan estää Suomessa.



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ff) 1980-luvulla Suomessa oli kauhean vähän ulkomaalaisia. Tulijat olivat pieniä ryhmiä, eikä heistä koettu olevan sosioekonomista uhkaa. Laman aikaan tuli pelkoja, että heitä tulee niin hirveän paljon [...]. gg) Meidän tapamme ei ehkä ole ainoa oikea, mutta se on se, jota enemmistö suomalaisista haluaa maassa harjoittavan. hh) Valtio voi tietyin edellytyksin päättää siitä, ketkä sen alueelle saavat asettua. ii) Tilannetta ei ole helppo korjata, kun suomalaistenkin työttömyys on korkea, mutta lain mukaan pitää valita pätevin hakija. jj) Ymmärrän siis oikein hyvin, jos työnantaja on haluton palkkaamaan maahanmuuttajaa. Niin kauan kuin elämme markkinataloudessa, monelle yritykselle maahanmuuttaja on yksinkertaisesti suurempi riski kuin mahdollisuus. kk) [...] muuttajalle laaditaan koulutusohjelmia. Ellei muuttaja halua osallistua niihin, hänen toimeentulotukensa pienenee asteittain ll) [...] kotouttamislaki vaatiikin viisaasti saattamaan pakolaiset entistä monipuolisempaan vuorovaikutukseen suomalaisen yhteiskunnan kanssa. [...] Tulija sitoutuu vastikkeeksi saamastaan tuesta opiskelemaan maan kielen, täydentämään ammattitaitoaan ja hankkimaan muut Suomessa tarpeelliset tiedot pystyäkseen elättämään itsensä ja osallistumaan muuhun elämään mm) Lähtökohdaksi on kotoutumisessa oivallettava, että maahanmuuttajat ovat osa Suomessa asuvaa väestöä ja samalla lailla keskenään erilaisia kuin muukin väestö.

Niklas Wilhelmsson

9 Social Capital as a Resource for Political Participation: Finland in a Nordic Comparative Perspective 9.1 Introduction and research questions The advanced industrialised democracies have witnessed a decreasing civic involvement among its citizens during recent decades (see Dalton 1996; Dalton et. al. 2002; Wass 2008).1 Within a general trend towards decreasing political participation and societal fragmentation, immigration poses an additional challenge by bringing further diversity into European societies (Ireland 1994). With the prospect of an ageing and declining population more immigration to Europe is likely in the coming years. In the mid-2000s, the number of third country nationals residing in the EU-countries amounted to approximately four percent of the total population and immigration has since become the main factor of demographic growth in most European countries (Ahokas 2010). While immigration and integration in recent years have received frequent attention in the academic literature, the subject has remained largely absent within political science (Saukkonen 2007). Although traditionally integration policies tend to focus on socio-economic topics, governments are increasingly concerned about the importance of the personal dimensions of integration, societal participation and the frequency and intensity of social interactions.2 This approach stipulates the need of integration into all aspects of society, including civil society and the political field. Studies show that migrants are often under-represented in democratic assemblies and hold a marginal position in the public domain (see Myrberg 2004; Vogel and Groupas 2006; Triandafyllidou and Groupas 2007). The participatory parity between migrants and the majority population has been addressed from a number of different angles, some focussing on individual and cultural factors, while others looking at institutional and contextual factors. According to Dahlstedt and Hertzberg (2006:916) there has been a tendency of blaming migrants for sharing such cultural and social features which generally are unfavourable for political participation, while their relatively marginal position in the public domain is related to asymmetric power relations and divergent possibilities to participate and influence the political process. It would thus be more fruitful to address the problem of inequalities in the political domain by focussing on the political and the social context, the institutions and the

1 Electoral participation and other forms of civic engagement have been declining in most Western democracies during the last two decades. 2 This is reflected in the Finnish democracy policy programme (Oikeusministeriön julkaisuja 14/2010). © 2015 Niklas Wilhelmsson This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.



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opportunity structures available for different social groups (Dahlstedt and Hertzberg 2006:9-16). In recent years some scholars have used the political opportunity structure approach (POS) for explaining differences concerning political involvement and political action repertoires in a comparative perspective3 (Koopmans 2004). This approach focusses on the participatory opportunities that the legal framework and the political system offer. In the academic literature one can find several contextual and institutional explanations for political participation (for an overview see Lane and Ersson 1990; Dalton 1996; Wass and Wilhelmsson 2009). At the macro-level, the institutional context, the legislation, the party system as well as the socioeconomic surrounding affect people’s opportunities to participate in politics and in the decision making process (Lane and Ersson 1990). The political inclusion of migrants is additionally affected by the way the government and the legislation take cognisance of migrants and by the way people, political parties and organisations perceive immigration and diversity (Anderson and Cohen 2005). The integration process is thus not only a relationship between the state and individual migrants, but a partnership between different levels of actors, including civil society associations. Civil society actors can support the integration process if they are proactive in addressing the changing needs, social dynamics and wellbeing of an increasingly diverse population. It is generally believed that social capital, measured as the degree of social involvement and trust, offers many positive features both for individuals and society (Putnam 1993; Putnam 2000). Accordingly, social capital can empower resource weak groups and also serve as a means for more equality in the political domain. Alternatively, access to power can be hampered in the social domain by excluding certain groups from organisational activities and social networks (Fennema and Tillie 1999; Fahmy 2003; Tillie 2004). It is however still not clear how and if social capital affects political participation. First, it is a contested issue whether social capital actually affects the degree of political participation. Some findings indicate that there is a strong relationship between social capital measured as the degree of organisational participation, trust and political participation (Fennema and Tillie 1999; Tillie 2004), while other findings point towards very modest correlations between these factors (Lundåsen 2004). There may also be contextual differences between countries and local variations, which

3 At the macro-level the effect of the political system for political mobilisation is often studied through the political opportunity structure-approach, which examines how different features of the political system affect political mobilisation. The political opportunity structure approach is not a unified concept or theory, rather, as Tarrow argues, a cluster of variables that describes certain features of the political system which is thought to be relevant for political mobilisation. (Tarrow 1988: 430) The core assumption of the theories is premised on how people act and which strategic choices they make are strongly influenced by the political-institutional context in which they live (Giugni and Passy 2004, 55).

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make the effects of social capital context dependent (Rothstein and Stolle 2003:18). Secondly, there are conflicting views on which types of social connections are most beneficial for individuals and societies. From one perspective ethnic organisations are viewed as important facilitators of the integration process, including political integration — while the opposing view holds that they may block migrants from participating in the majority society.4 In the social capital literature this phenomenon is usually addressed through the concepts bridging and bonding social capital (Putnam 2000). Social capital research has gained quite substantial attention within the Nordic countries.5 The Nordic states have traditionally been characterised by strong civil societies, consensus politics and a close relationship between civil society and the government. These countries also traditionally share some other features of social capital, such as a high level of interpersonal trust and a high degree of trust towards the authorities (Rothstein and Stolle 2003). Some researchers are, however, questioning how well the Nordic welfare states are equipped to deal with diversity. Forsander, among others, argues that the strong social capital of the Nordic welfare seems to be exclusionary concerning migrants. In Forsander’s words, Many aspects of the strong social capital hinder immigrant integration into the labour market and therefore into society in general. The homogeneity of the norm base and tight social networks leads to strong in-group loyalty that excludes outsiders who do not— from the perspective of in-group members— share the common norm base. Following the division between bonding and bridging social capital, it seems that the Nordic forms of social capital are more bonding than bridging in nature. (Forsander 2004:1-3)

The purpose of this article is twofold; first to test how and if social capital, measured through different forms of organisational participation, affect the political participation of migrants in the Finnish context; and second, to review the Finnish political opportunity structures and the social capital of migrants in Finland from a Nordic comparative perspective. Civil society organisations can both in Finland and in the other Nordic countries be expected to have a central role in the integration process as social connections in these countries mainly are structured based on formal organisation memberships (Siisiäinen and Kankainen 2009). It can also be assumed that migrant organisations and ethnic communities are differently structured in different contexts. The situation in Finland, which is a new country of immigration with a small immigrant population, may be rather different to the one in for example Sweden, which has a long history of immigration and a large immigrant population.

4 The question also indirectly in a broader perspective relates to the debate on whether states should adopt multicultural or assimilationist policies. 5 For example the Academy of Finland has financed a substantial research programme in the field (2000-2007).



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The following research questions will be addressed in this chapter: Does social capital (measured as participation in organisations and other forms of social activities) affect the degree of political participation? Which form of social involvement is most beneficial for political participation? Is social capital in the Nordic countries exclusive (bonding), making societal participation of migrants difficult?

The research questions will be answered through: a survey dataset collected by Statistics Finland among Russian, Estonian, Somali and Vietnamese immigrants living in the Helsinki capital region, Tampere and Turku;6 election statistics; the Migrant Integration Policy Index7 and the European Social Survey (ESS).8 The article begins with a brief overview of the concept of political participation, where the normative importance of an active and engaged citizenry and the problems of political exclusion and marginalisation are discussed. After that, the explanatory factor social capital is discussed, followed by a presentation of the central control variables, which will be used in the multivariate analysis in the empirical portion of

6 The immigrant survey that was conducted by Statistics Finland in 2002 is used as research material. Electoral participation was measured through the following question: Did you vote in the last municipal elections? It is not entirely reliable to measure electoral participation by surveys because of the problem of over-reporting. The reported electoral participation in surveys is generally higher than the actual turnout. This also seems to be the case concerning the immigrant survey. It is difficult to evaluate the reliability of the survey due to a lack of comparable register data. The following question was asked to measure organisational participation: Have you during the last 12 months participated in any of the following activities. 1) sport- and hobby clubs 2) interest organisations 3) political organisations or political parties 4) other organisations (e.g. humanitarian organisations etc. 4) immigrant sportand hobby clubs 5) multicultural meeting places. Social contacts were measured with the following questions: do you have any Finnish friends? How often are you in contact with immigrants from your own ethnic group? How often are you in contact with other immigrants? The sample size of the groups in the survey is in a statistical sense rather small. The samples have been compared to register data from the population register according to age, gender and education categories. The research material seems fairly accurately to represent the compositions of the immigrant groups. There are however statistically significant differences in the response rates between the age groups except for the Somalis. Especially weak response rates are found among over 35 year old Vietnamese immigrants and among the youngest age cohorts of the Estonian and Russian immigrants. Electoral participation was measured through the following question: Did you vote in the last municipal elections? 7 The Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) measures policies to integrate migrants in 25 EU Member States and 3 non-EU countries. It uses over 100 policy indicators to create a rich, multi-dimensional picture of migrants' opportunities to participate in European societies. MIPEX covers six policy areas which shape a migrant's journey to full citizenship. For a more detailed description on the methodology see: http://www.integrationindex.eu/. 8 The European Social Survey (the ESS) is an academically-driven social survey designed to chart and explain the interaction between Europe's changing institutions and the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour patterns of its diverse populations. Now preparing for its fifth round, the survey covers more than 30 nations and employs the most rigorous methodologies. For a detailed description of the methodology and questioners see: http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/.

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the study. The last section of the article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the political opportunity structure, social capital and political participation within the Nordic countries.

9.2 Political participation Political participation can take many different forms and is partly dependant on the definition of the concept itself. Political participation is already by definition a contested concept since it is without a universally accepted definition. One often used definition of political participation is the one of Verba, Nie and Kim (1978). They define political participation as ‘those legal activities by private citizens that are more or less directly aimed at influencing the selection of governmental personnel and/or the actions they take’ (Verba, Nie and Kim 1978:46). This definition may serve its purpose when investigating conventional forms of participation but it is clearly too restrictive when studying political activity from a broader perspective. Not only does it exclude actions which are not directly pointed towards the conventional channels of participation, it also excludes civil disobedience and such new forms of political participation which often target non-state actors in the public, non-profit and private sectors (Norris 2002:193). A broad and more inclusive definition of political participation is for example the one by Barnes et al. (1979:42) where they define political participation as ‘all voluntary activities by individual citizens intended to influence directly or indirectly political choices at various levels of the political system.’ This definition includes both conventional as well as unconventional forms of political participation. The former entails the participation in the political sphere through direct and often highly institutionalised channels such as voting in elections, candidacy in elections, party membership, campaign activities and petitions. The latter refer to new forms of political actions which often target non-state actors in the public, non-profit and private sectors and different forms of protest behavior, ranging from demonstrations to civil disobedience (Dalton 1996). Despite the fact that political participation may take many different forms, this article will, due to limitations of space and research materials, mainly focus on electoral participation.9 To use electoral participation as an indicator of political participation can also be motivated by the fact that it is the most common form of political participation. It is also known to be strongly connected to more demanding forms of political participation, i.e. those who vote, are usually also taking part in more demanding forms of political activities (see Dalton 1996; Wass and Wilhelmsson 2009).

9 i.e. It forms the dependent variables of the analysis.



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9.2.1 The importance of political participation and equality To enable migrants to feel part of our society, it must be ensured that they have proper tools to participate fully in the society. The political participation of migrants is often addressed through the multi-dimensional concept of political integration, which involves adherence to democratic values, political trust and political participation. In order to be able to talk about political integration, people must at least adhere to the central values of democracy, at least hold some degree of trust towards the political system and the political institutions, and at least to some extent participate in the political process (Tillie 2004:530-531). One central component of political integration is political participation. Political participation fills many important societal functions and is important both from a normative perspective and from a practical point of view. Robert Dahl argues that some of the most fundamental demands on a well functioning democracy involve political equality and effective citizen participation (Dahl 2000:62-63). This does not however imply that everybody should have to participate in everything all the time. It rather means that the ‘decision to participate reflects a political statement instead of being a reflection of a lack of resources or a feeling of powerlessness and political marginalization’ (Bengtsson 2004:8). As political participation forms the input side in the political system, uneven participation patterns may lead to divergent political influence and power configurations. One of the most significant problems relating to divergent participation patterns between different social groups relates to the impact it has on the political agenda (Teixeira 1992). If political participation is considerably lower among some social groups, their interests and desires might to a lesser degree be observed, especially as the political parties often direct their campaigns and efforts towards those groups which are more easily mobilised. A disadvantageous political agenda may in the long run even decrease the interest for involvement among those groups that feel that their voices are not heard and that their interests are not properly taken into account (Wass and Wilhelmsson 2009:19-20).

9.2.2 Political rights of migrants in the Nordic countries A number of European countries have granted basic political rights to migrants, including voting rights in municipal and regional elections (table 1). However, nearly half of the EU Member States countries do not grant voting rights in municipal elections to their resident foreign population. Altogether 12 of the EU-countries strictly deny local enfranchisement. Belgium and Estonia only offer partial political rights for non-citizens. They provide voting rights in municipal elections but deny the possibility of candidacy in elections. Eleven EU-countries offer full local political rights for non-citizens provided that they fulfil the criteria stipulated by

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law. The limitations for obtaining local voting rights vary considerably between member states.10 All the Nordic countries provide full political rights at the local level for non-citizens. The Nordic countries11 have had a different path towards providing political rights to non-citizens, which probably both reflects their migration histories as well as the political climates in the countries at the time. Table 1: Voting rights for third country nationals in EU Member States Political rights

EU Member States

No local voting rights

Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland Belgium, Estonia

Local voting rights but not the right to stand as a candidate in elections Full voting rights conditional upon fulfilment of some requirements

Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Malta, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK

Source: Triandafyllidou and Groupas (2007)

In 1975, Sweden was the first country in the world to introduce voting rights in local elections to foreign citizens. In Denmark and Norway migrants received voting rights in the 1980s. In Finland, residents of other Nordic countries gained voting rights in 1975 but it took until 1992 before other foreigners received similar rights. In Finland laws governing the political organisation and the political participation of foreigners were restrictive before the 1990s. In the Nordic countries a reform of election laws was seen as a necessary step towards including migrants in politics. It was believed that immigrants as any other citizens would have a natural interest to be involved in the decision making process, because they are directly affected by the political decisions that are made at the municipal level. It was also believed that allowing migrants to participate in the political process would more strongly bind them to society (Hammar 1979; Lepola 2004:278-282).

10 The time limit of residence and residence status for obtaining voting rights vary quite considerably between different EU member states. For an overview see: www.politis.org; Triandafyllidou and Groupas (2007). 11 The Nordic countries can be characterised as a municipal state with fairly extensive rules for municipal self- governance. Municipalities are in charge of arranging many of the welfare policies, housing, education and healthcare. Many of these important decisions are made at the local level, making local elections important.



The explanatory variable: social capital 

 183

9.3 The explanatory variable: social capital The civil society has been at the centre of democratic theory ever since Alexis de Tocqueville’s study of 19th century America revealed that democracy works better and citizens are more engaged when people learn to cooperate within the civil society (de Toqueville 2000). During the decades after World War II civil society fell into the background of academic debates. The discussion about the importance of the civil society for democratic performance was revitalised through social capital theory. The concept was introduced by Hanifa at the beginning of the 20th century but gained larger acknowledgement especially through Robert Putnam (Infed encyclopedia 2005). The concept of social capital has been highly contested in the academic literature.12 Different definitions have resulted in divergent understandings of the concept. In Putnam's view social capital refers to social networks, reciprocity norms, mutual cooperation and trust (Putnam 1993). Social capital, in Putnam's meaning, is of utmost importance in a multicultural society for building trust between groups coming from different cultures. Intercultural dialogue and bridging social connections are needed in order to build social capital between different groups (Niemelä 2007:86-87). Civic activities are important in developing reciprocity and mutual norms, as civil society organisations form a protected environment where people can learn to cooperate, trust each other and learn necessary civic skills (Fennema and Tillie 2001:203-204). The role of social capital for the inclusion of migrants in the political domain of the receiving society has received increasing attention since the frequently cited article by Fennema and Tillie (1999) was published. According to the authors (1999), social capital – measured as the degree of ‘ethnic civic community’ – was the most important factor explaining the political mobilisation of immigrant groups in the Netherlands. Their hypothesis has been tested in a number of studies since, but the results have been ambiguous. Contradictory results have been found, particularly concerning different forms of social organisations and the impact they have on political participation and political trust in society (see Uslaner and Conley 2003; Berger et. al. 2004; Togeby 2004).

9.3.1 Bridging and bonding social capital The role of social capital for a well functioning society has frequently been discussed since Putnam’s seminal study of Italy (Putnam 1993). Putnam’s work was originally criticised for being too optimistic and ignoring the negative aspects of civil society organisations. As a reaction to the critique, Putnam introduced the concepts bridging

12 For a discussion see Rothstein and Stolle 2003.

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 Social Capital as a Resource for Political Participation

and bonding social capital. Bridging social capital refers to social connections which are inclusive and connects different groups. Bonding social capital is on the other hand exclusive and tends to strengthen closed identities. A bridging social capital has often, from a societal perspective, been viewed as more beneficial because it connects people and creates unity. A bonding social capital is on the other hand considered exclusive and tends to strengthen closed group identities. It may however form an asset as it can maintain mutuality and solidarity within a specific group (Putnam 2000:22-23). One of the central questions in the debate concerning bridging and boding social capital is whether states should adopt assimilationist or multicultural policies. Borevi notes that based on Putnam’s notion it seems to be more beneficial for states to favour assimilationist policies because it creates a bridging social capital, which favours the integration of migrants. On the other hand it is not in accordance with the normative basis of the liberal state to try to enforce migrants to abandon their own cultural traditions in favour of integration. At the same time it violates the principle of political equality by imposing a certain identity on persons in order to be included in the political community (Borevi 2004:34-35). As was explained in the introductory part of this chapter, the Nordic welfare model has been criticised for creating a bonding social capital, which makes it difficult for migrants to get fully involved within the Nordic societies. I will come back to this issue in the empirical part of the study. Another question concerning bridging and bonding social capital deals with the role of immigrant organisations (Berger et. al. 2004; Togeby 2004). According to what sometimes is called the assimilationist view, social organisations are important resources for migrants as long as the activities occur within the framework of the society in general. Immigrant organisations on the other hand, have a tendency to isolate migrants from the rest of society, as strong social networks within a closed community isolate outsiders and inhibit members from participating in social networks outside it (Uslaner and Conley 2003). Meanwhile it is argued that they may lead to an increasing fragmentation of the society and being unbeneficial for the integration process. Concerning political participation, the assumption is that members of strong social circles inhibit a formation of common political goals and interests between migrants and the majority population. Meanwhile, members of closed migrant communities have less access to such organisations where the political learning process takes place and thus also get exposed to a lesser extent to political information and recruitment attempts, than those that are engaged in ‘bridging networks’ (Teorell 2003:51-52). They consequently have less opportunity to attain the democratic skills that are needed for political participation. The opposing view maintains that immigrant organisations may function as a gateway into society in general (Togeby 2004) as strong social ties within a specific group brings about a strong confidence in one’s own identity, which at the same time develops respect and a will to co-operate with others (Valtonen 1999:475). Immigrant organisations can also provide information, advice and assistance for immigrants



Control variables 

 185

in their native languages and act as a contact channel to the majority population (Mikkelsen 2003:16) forming the basis for what Togeby calls double integration – where immigrants interact both within the ethnic community as well as within society in general. This also provides the basis for an inclusion into the political domain (Togeby 1999:671). Borevi also notes that vertical relationships within a closed community may equally represent a resource for political participation because they form a social base for participation for the group members (Borevi 2004).

9.3.2 Hypotheses Based on the theoretical discussion in the previous chapters, it is possible to formulate four research hypotheses which will be tested by using the research material described in the introductory section of the study. The following hypotheses will be tested: 1. Social capital, operationalised as organisational participation, constitutes a resource that enhances electoral participation, i.e. electoral participation is expected to be higher amongst immigrants participating in organisational activities. 2. Organisational participation forms an asset for electoral participation irrespective of the type of activity (ethnic versus non-ethnic). 3. The range (the share number) of organisational participation is a more decisive feature for electoral participation than the type of activity. 4. Social capital is bonding in the Nordic states due to the homogeneity of the norm base and tight social networks which form an obstacle for migrants societal participation.

9.4 Control variables In order to confirm the validity of the hypotheses that were posed, each hypothesis should hold even when other variables affecting electoral participation are taken into account in the analysis. Socio-demographic and human capital features of the electorate have usually formed the foundation for explaining differences in political behaviour (Holmberg 1981:16-17). Research on the social characteristics of voters has been common in electoral studies since they are easy to measure and they stand behind many variables that are more difficult to measure (Milbrath and Goel 1977:86). At the individual level many studies have shown that the socio-demographic characteristics of the electorate are significant explanatory factors for electoral behaviour. Differences in electoral participation have, amongst other factors, been explained by differences in age, gender, educational attainment, occupation and marital status. General patterns that have been found include that younger people participate to a lesser extent than middle aged and older ones, that married people are

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more active than singles and that highly educated and those who have a higher level of income participate to a higher degree than other groups in society. Traditionally, men have participated more actively than women, but over the last two decades this pattern has changed in favour of women in many developed democracies (Verba and Nie 1972; Millbrath and Goel 1977; Van der Eijk 2000). Some studies have shown that the lower electoral participation amongst migrants partly reflects their lower human capital (Hammar 1979; Bäck and Soininen 1996). Studies dealing with the societal participation of migrants have also shown that there is a relationship between language proficiency and political participation. It is argued that language proficiency makes it easier to follow politics and election campaigns which raises interest towards politics and increases electoral participation (Jacobs and Tillie 2004:422). Citizenship has also been viewed as an important prerequisite for political participation because it provides people with the right to vote in ‘first-order’ elections (parliamentary and presidential elections), which strengthens the democratic learning process and increases interest towards politics. Citizenship also makes living in the country of immigration become permanent, which increases engagement within all sectors of society (Togeby 2004:521). With the above stated motivations, gender, age, marital status, educational attainment and labour market position have been chosen as control variables in the analysis. The impact of citizenship and language skills will also be taken into account in the analysis. Before analysing the relationship between organisational participation and electoral participation a brief presentation on the electoral turnout rates and organisational participation of migrants in Finland will be made.

9.5 Political participation among migrants in Finland The political participation and representation of foreigners in Finland has so far been fairly modest and it has mostly been concentrated within specific groups (Lepola 2004:8). The political parties have only recently reacted to the growing number of people of foreign descent having voting rights. Electoral participation among foreign citizens has remained at a low level ever since 1992, when foreigners were first granted voting rights in municipal elections (see table 2). The fairly steep decline in electoral participation that occurred between 1992 and 1996 is most likely related to a revision of the municipal law, which took place in 1995. This provided a much larger number of migrants with voting rights, and reduced the time limit for obtaining voting rights. Electoral turnout since the 1996 municipal elections among foreign citizens has been fairly stable. The mean turnout rate among foreign citizens has been between fifteen and twenty percent, compared to the total average turnout rate in municipal elections, which has ranged between 56 per cent



Political participation among migrants in Finland 

 187

and 71 per cent.13 The turnout rate among EU-citizens and citizens of Norway and Iceland has been somewhat higher than amongst the rest of the foreign population. There are also some smaller regional variations in electoral turnout between foreign citizens living in the periphery and those living in the cities.14 In some locations, such as Pirkanmaa in Eastern Finland and Lapland in the North, electoral turnout amongst foreign citizens has been higher than in other regions, which at least partly reflects differences in the composition of the migrants groups living in these areas, as well as favourable candidate nominations (Wilhelmsson 2008). The number of candidates with migrant backgrounds has been growing since the 1990s, but is still lower than the number of foreigners holding voting rights would indicate. In the last municipal election in 2008, 3.2 per cent of the electorate had a mother tongue other than Finnish, Swedish or Sámi, while only 1.5 per cent of the candidates and 0.3 per cent of those who where elected had a different mother tongue than the above mentioned. Altogether, 34 persons with foreign background, of which 13 where women, were elected in the 2008 municipal elections (Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities 2010). Table 2: Electoral participation Electoral turnout (%)

Total

Turnout foreign citizens

EU-citizens, citizens of Other foreign citizens Iceland and Norway

2008 2004 2000 1996 1992

61.3 58.6 55.9 61.3 70.9

19.6 15.3 20.8 20.7 40.5

20.8 17.9 30.4 32.0 50.1

16.6 13.5 17.7 16.7 34.4

Source: Statistics Finland

9.5.1 Organisational participation among immigrants in Finland Finland has sometimes been characterised as a country of organisations. Most Finnish people belong to one or several civil society organisations. Even if some quite fundamental changes have occurred in Finnish civil society in recent decades, the organisations sector is still vibrant and a fundamental part of how social activities are arranged in Finland (Siisiäinen and Kankainen 2009).

13 Immigrant groups are by no means homogeneous. Migrants should be considered, rather, as individuals or members of specific sub-categories defined by national or ethnic origin, religion, gender, age or reason for their arrival. It is however impossible to single out persons from the electoral register based on other features than nationality. Migrants who have received Finnish citizenship do not appear on the register. 14 Most of the foreigners enjoying voting rights live in the capital region and in other larger cities.

188 

 Social Capital as a Resource for Political Participation

Immigrant organisations in Finland are, on the other hand, a fairly recent phenomenon due to the country’s short migration history. The first immigrant organisations were established in the 1990s and the number of organisations has rapidly increased since then (Saksela 2003). Overall the possibilities for ethnic integration into organisations are relatively scarce in the Finnish context due to the relatively low number of immigrants living in the country and the relatively heterogeneous feature of the migrant population (Forsander 2004:190). In the immigrant survey that was conducted by Statistics Finland in 2002 migrants were asked about their participation in organisational activities. The results are presented in table 3. Table 3: Organisational participation among immigrants in Finland Type of organisation / activity (%)

Estonian

Russian

Somali

Vietnamese Total

Residence events

50 N=312

51 N=522

48 N=324

40 N=119

48 N=1351

Sports and leisure organisations

31 N=305

28 N=513

20 N=323

12 N=193

25 N=1334

Voluntary organisations

6 N=304

8 N=324

7 N=324

8 N=193

7 N=1320

Political organisations

0,3 N=297

2,4 N=334

2,5 N=324

1 N=193

1,7 N=1148

Interest organisations (labour unions etc.)

12 N=304

6 N=512

3 N=324

9 N=193

6 N=1337

16 N=518

36 N=324

6 N=193

17 N=1344

Immigrant leisure and sports organisations Range of activities (%) No participation

54

56

54

78

58

Participates in 1 activity

35

33

29

17

30

Participates in 2 activities

10

8

14

4

10

Participates in 3 or more activities

0

3

4

1

2

Mean

0.6

0.6

0.7

0.3

0.5

N

312

521

324

193

1355

(Source: Statistics Finland)



Political participation among migrants in Finland 

 189

As the figures of table 3 reveal, almost half of the migrants participate in residence activities and a third participate in some forms of organised leisure and sports activities.15 Almost one in ten participate in some form of voluntary organisations; a type of organisational activity, which during recent years has been growing the most among native Finns (Siisiäinen and Kankainen 2009). Differences in participation patterns between the groups in the research sample are relatively small, except for leisure and sports activities in which Russian and Estonian migrants are most actively engaged, while participation overall is more modest especially among Vietnamese migrants. Participation in political organisations is on the other hand rare for all of the groups, which probably reflects the fact that political parties in Finland have only recently directed special efforts to recruit migrants as party members or nominated candidates with migrant backgrounds (see Weide 2008). Meanwhile there has in general been a steep decline of overall party memberships in Finland during the last two decades (Mickelsson 2009). We also find some variations in the participation patterns in labour market organisations, which at least partly may reflect the labour market positions of the respective groups. Almost one fifth of the respondents in the immigrant survey reported that they participate in the activities of immigrant organisations. Somali migrants are most actively involved in the activities of the immigrant organisations. The involvement among Russian and Vietnamese immigrants is considerably lower. Estonian migrants participate the least in the activities of the immigrant organisations, which probably reflects the fact that Estonian immigrants to a greater extent are involved within organisations in the majority society. Overall, roughly half of the migrants do not participate in any organisation activities (organised activities), while the other half participates in one to two activities. The greatest group differences are to be found between Vietnamese migrants and the rest of the groups in the sample.

9.5.2 An analysis of the link between organisational participation and electoral participation among migrants in Finland The link between organisational involvement and electoral participation is tested in the regression analysis in table 4. The regression model is based on the analytical model presented in the theoretical part of the article. In the first regression model the range of organisational participation (participation in organised activities) has been entered into a logistic regression analysis together with the control variables, presented in paragraph 4 (control variables) Electoral participation forms the

15 This finding is in line with previous studies (see Harinen 2005).

190 

 Social Capital as a Resource for Political Participation

dependent variable of the analysis.16 In the second regression model different forms of organisational memberships (ethnic versus non-ethnic) have been entered into the analysis together with the same variables as in regression model one. The results essentially confirm the hypothesis that was posed. Organisational involvement comes out as a fairly strong predictor of electoral participation, even while controlling for other social differences, i.e. the more actively one participates in organisational activities the higher the odds are for electoral participation. It thus appears that organisational involvement would form a pathway towards increasing political involvement. Based on earlier research one may also assume that if organisational involvement in general is beneficial for electoral participation, it should be even more beneficial for participation in more demanding forms of political activity (Vogel and Groupas 2006:14). One problem remains with the conclusion: is increasing political participation actually an effect of social involvement or is it merely just a reflection of overall active citizens? This question remains largely unanswered within the literature, even if there is quite profound theoretical evidence to support the argument in our case (see Putnam 1993; Fennema and Tillie 1999; Rothstein and Stolle 2003). Secondly, I find no evidence suggesting that involvement in immigrant organisations would isolate migrants from the majority society. On the contrary, participation in immigrant organisations positively relates to electoral participation, even if the relationship is more modest than among other types of organisational activities. This may reflect the largely non-political character of immigrant organisations (see Ålund and Shierup 1991:120-121 for an overview of immigrant organisations in Sweden; for Finland see Saksela 2003) or limitations concerning the research material.17 Another feature that seems to support the case is that most of the migrants participating in immigrant organisations also participate in some nonethnic organisational activities, which indicates that they function as a gateway into civil society in general, rather than separating migrants from the majority population. Aside from organisational involvement, citizenship comes out as the most decisive predictor of electoral participation. Citizenship provides people with full political rights and makes the state of residence permanent, which according to earlier studies significantly increases the odds for participation in all types of societal activities (see Togeby 2004). This also raises a question on how citizenship policies may act as a

16 A logistic regression model has been used as the dependent variable is dichotomous (voted / did not vote). The variables have been entered by the forced entry method, which generally is the most suitable and most widely used method of entering variables into a regression analysis in social sciences. The measure in the right column of the table signifies the B coefficient in the regression model, which tells us how strong the influence of the variable is. The stars signify the level of significance, i.e. if the variables can statistically be confirmed. This implies that there is a 90 per cent or greater chance that there is a relationship between the variables. 17 Limitations may relate to how the question was phrased in the survey and the fact that many migrants left the question unanswered.



Political participation among migrants in Finland 

 191

barrier for political integration and participation. In Finland citizenship policies are rather strict from a comparative perspective, which may have a negative impact on the political integration of migrants, as it may take almost a decade of permanent residence in the country before acquiring full civic rights. Table 4: Social capital and electoral participation Variables

Model 1 B

Model 2 B

Gender

0.478***

0.449***

Marital status

0.210

0.191

Age 26-35

-0.165

-0.179

Age 36-45

0.124

0.087

Age 46-55

0.358

0.332

Education (in country of origin)

0.956***

0.893***

Education (in Finland)

0.064***

0.066***

Labour market position

0.210

0.214

Language proficiency

0.123

0.156

Citizenship

1.112***

1.107***

Time of residence in Finland

-0.403***

-0.400***

Ethnic group: Estonian

-0.309

-0.393*

Ethnic group: Somali

0.207

0.252

Ethnic group: Vietnamese

-0.370

-0.396

Participates in 1 organisation

0.838***

-

Participates in 2 organisations

1.339***

-

Participates in 3 or more organisations

1.716***

-

Organisational participation (ethnic)

-

0.371**

Organisational participation (non-ethnic)

-

0.175*

N

1087

1076

-2 Log lik. ho.

1172,443

1160,857

Nagelkerke R

0.27

0.27

Commentary: Regression analysis (binary logistic). Dependent variable: 0 = did not vote, 1= voted. Independent variables: Gender: 0 = female, 1 = male. Marital status: 0 = unmarried, divorced, widow, 1= married, cohabiting. Age: 18-24 coded as reference category, other age variables coded as dummy variables. Education in country of origin: continuous variable ranging from 0-23 years of education. Education in Finland: 0 = no formal education, 1 = ammattitkulutus or university degree in Finland. Language proficiency: 0 = weak Finnish/Swedish skills, 1 = good or sufficient skills in Finnish. Citizenship: 0 = foreign citizenship, 1 = Finnish citizenship. Time of residence in Finland: continuous variable ranging from 0-20. Ethnic groups: Russians coded at reference category, other ethnic groups coded as dummy variables. Organisational participation (range): no organisational participation coded as reference category, the rest coded as dummies. Organisational participation (ethnic): 0 = no participation, 1 = participates. Non-ethnic organisational participation : 0 = no participation, 1 = participates. Notation : p < 0.01 = ***, p < 0.05 = **, p < 0.1 = *.

192 

 Social Capital as a Resource for Political Participation

Besides citizenship, time of residence in Finland, gender and education are the other variables which show a statistically significant relationship with electoral participation. It is not highly surprising that the time of residence is connected to the level of political participation as it takes time to get acquainted with society and the political system, which makes it more likely for those who have stayed longer in the country to participate in politics. We also know from earlier studies that people who are frequently moving are often less engaged in their local communities. Gender differences may on the other hand reflect the fact that politics in some cultures are male dominated, making the political integration of women an issue one should direct special attention to. Education, on the other hand, is one of the so called ‘usual suspects’ while studying political participation, as it strengthens the skills and abilities to follow and engage in political activities. One could thus raise the question, of whether education in societal matters should be more strongly incorporated into the agenda of the integration courses that are offered to immigrants.

9.6 Civic rights, electoral participation and organisational activity among migrants in a Nordic comparative perspective In the previous sections we have discovered that the electoral participation of migrants in Finland at the individual level is connected to organisational involvement, formal citizenship and other social resources. In order to put Finland into a comparative perspective and discern how organisational involvement and other systemic features affect political participation, the next section includes a comparative analysis of the Nordic countries. The Nordic countries are often used in comparative analyses, as the countries share many historical and systemic features. Due to many similarities, the Nordic countries also form a useful analytical framework when considering migrant integration, but they still have very distinctive features, concerning their migration history, the size of the migrant population as well as integration policies. The Nordic countries differ quite substantially concerning migration patterns and the number of migrants living in the countries. Migration to Sweden and Denmark started in the 1960s and the countries have fairly large migrant populations. Migration to Norway started roughly a decade later than in the two previously mentioned countries. Finland forms a deviant case as the country, during the 1960s and 1970s, was notably characterised with outwards migration, to, among other countries, Sweden. Immigration to Finland started late and it was not until the 1990s that Finland received a higher number of migrants, and in 2010 the migrant population was still among the smallest in Europe. The Nordic countries also vary concerning both the composition of the migrant groups and the main reasons for migrating to the country (see Triandafyllidou and Groupas 2007). In all the Nordic countries the electoral participation of migrants has been considerably lower than among the general population. Even though electoral



Civic rights, electoral participation and organisational activity among migrants in ... 

 193

participation has in general been declining in all the Nordic countries during the last decade, Denmark, Sweden and Norway still belong to the group of countries with high electoral participation, while Finland has dropped below the European average (Wass and Wilhelmsson 2009:34). Among migrants, electoral participation has generally decreased gradually as voting rights have become more inclusive. There are, however, considerable variations in turnout rates between different migrant groups and different local contexts, which is a question for further analysis in forthcoming studies. While comparing electoral participation amongst migrants in the Nordic countries, turnout rates have been highest in Denmark followed by Norway. In Sweden electoral participation amongst migrants has been lower and declining ever since the introduction of voting rights for foreign citizens in 1975. Finland forms the extreme case as electoral participation amongst migrants is considerably lower than in the other Nordic countries.

100 90 80 70 60 50 40

Denmark Finland Norway Sweden

30 20 10 0

Figure 1: Electoral turnout among migrants in municipal elections in the Nordic countries18 Sources: Denmark; Togeby (1999); Spies (2010), Finland; Statistics Finland, Norway; Melve (2003); Sweden; SEB, Benito (2005).

In the following discussion, some features of the political opportunity structures of the Nordic countries will be evaluated based on measurements from the Migration

18 Commentary to the table: For Denmark there are no available figures for 2005 and 2009 (Spies 2010, 133); for Norway the most recent figures found by the author of this article is from 2003.

194 

 Social Capital as a Resource for Political Participation

Integration Policy Index. The Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) measures policies to integrate migrants in 25 EU Member States and 3 non-EU countries. It uses over 100 policy indicators to create a rich, multi-dimensional picture of migrants’ opportunities to participate in European societies. MIPEX covers six policy areas which shape a migrant’s journey to full citizenship. Koopmans argues that the political opportunity structures either may stimulate or constrain and channel the levels of political involvement among migrants and ethnic minorities (Koopmans 2004:449). Table 5 highlights some policy features of the Nordic countries that are evaluated based on the Migration Integration Policy Index. According to the MIPEX index, Sweden has the most inclusive integration policies among all European countries as well as the most extensive political rights for migrants. Norway and Finland also score fairly well on both of the above mentioned dimensions while Denmark only scores close the EU average on the index. Overall, each of the Nordic countries, except for Denmark with some reservations, score very well on the index. Table 5: Political rights according to the Migration Integration Policy Index Long term residence

Family reunification

Rights Political Anti-discrimination Labour to citizenship rights measures market

Denmark

67

36

33

55

33

40

Finland

65

68

44

81

75

70

Norway

72

66

39

86

54

70

Sweden

76

92

71

93

94

100

EU-15

61

59

48

60

66

64

EU-10

57

55

37

20

48

45

EU-25

59

57

49

43

58

56

When comparing levels of inclusivity of political rights and integration policies, with political participation in the Nordic countries, no clear pattern emerges. Even though Denmark scores lowest among the Nordic countries on the MIPEX index, electoral participation among migrants is significantly higher in Denmark than in the other Nordic countries. Based on these figures it is not possible to draw any far reaching conclusions on the impact of integration related policies on democratic participation. There may be other systemic factors such as how policies are implemented, which in practice has a much greater impact on the political and social involvement of migrants, as indicated in the discussion surrounding table 6. In table 6 the organisational involvement of migrants in the Nordic countries are examined based on the European Social Survey (ESS) to study whether social capital



Civic rights, electoral participation and organisational activity among migrants in ... 

 195

– measured as the degree of participation in organisations can be viewed as bonding and exclusive, making it hard for migrants in the Nordic countries to participate in organisations. Table 6: Organisational memberships and organisational participation among migrants in the European countries (ESS) Membership (%)

Membership (%)

Participation (%)

Participation (%)

Native

Migrant

Native

Migrant

Sweden

2.5

1.9

0.9

0.6

Denmark

2.5

1.7

0.9

0.7

Norway

2.2

1.7

0.8

0.5

Netherlands

2.2

1.7

0.8

0.5

Austria

2.2

1.5

0.8

0.8

Belgium

1.6

1.2

1

0.8

Ireland

1.6

1.7

0.7

1

Finland

1.6

1.1

0.6

0.5

Great Britain

1.6

1.6

0.9

1.3

Germany

1.5

1

0.7

0.5

France

1

0.8

0.8

0.7

Spain

0.7

0.4

0.4

0.2

Portugal

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.3

Greece

0.5

0.2

0.2

0.1

Commentary: The table is based on data material from the European Social Survey (ESS1-2002). The following questions were asked: Are you a member of any of the following organisations? Have you during the last year participated in any of the following organisation activities? 12 different categories of organisations were given in the questionnaire.

Based on data from the European Social Survey, we can discern that people of the Nordic countries are among the most active organisation members and they also actively participate in organisation activities, which is hardly surprising considering the traditionally important role of civil society within the Nordic countries (see Borg 2005; Siisiäinen and Kankainen 2009). In Finland, involvement is somewhat lower both among migrants and among the general population than in the other Nordic countries. Also in the other Nordic countries, migrants participate somewhat less in civil society organisations than the general population. The figures do not provide any strong support for the hypothesis that social capital in the Nordic welfare states would be bonding, making it especially hard for migrants to participate in organised

196 

 Social Capital as a Resource for Political Participation

activities as Forsander (2004) argues. Based on the data, it seems rather that migrants living in the Nordic countries, would from a comparative perspective, be fairly actively involved in organisational activities compared to migrants in other European countries.

9.7 Discussion Political rights certainly form the basic prerequisites for political participation, but it seems that political mobilisation requires both favourable institutional structures and policies, combined with efforts of political parties and civil society organisations and other relevant actors. According to the MIPEX index the Nordic countries seem to have fairly open and good integration and citizenship policies, except with some reservations for Denmark. All the Nordic countries also offer full political rights for non-citizens at the local level. Even though legislation and policies are inclusive, there is still a risk of failure in the implementation, concerning which there is limited knowledge and data. Social capital in the Nordic welfare states has been claimed to be bonding and exclusive due to the homogeneity of the norm base and tight social networks, which leads to strong in-group loyalty (Forsander 2004). Concerning involvement in organisational activities, our data does not support this hypothesis. There is also limited knowledge of how divergent the participation patterns between different migrant groups are. There is also some evidence of difficulties that migrants have experienced concerning participation in civil society organisations. In all the Nordic countries there seem to exist some barriers to participation, such as language skills and experiences of racism or discrimination (see for example Harinen 2005). In Finland, immigrant organisations are a fairly recent phenomenon, while they have a much longer history in the other Nordic countries. Migrants also seem to have more difficulties associated with organising internally in Finland than in the other Nordic countries, due to the fact that immigrant groups in Finland are small and heterogeneous. The relationship between organisational participation and political participation found at the individual level is less clear on the macro-level. In Denmark some immigrant organisations have had political issues on their agendas and have enjoyed success in mobilising migrants into political participation (see Melve 2003). In Sweden and Finland immigrant organisations have mostly been non-political and migrants have mostly participated in organisations without political goals, which may affect the degree to which these organisations mobilise immigrants into other forms of societal activities. Aside from government policies, there are several systemic and contextual factors affecting the political mobilisation of migrants. Earlier studies have shown that proportional systems that offer the possibility to vote directly for a candidate

Conclusions 

 197

tend to be more favourable for migrant mobilisation than majority systems with closed candidate lists (see Togeby 2008). There are also numerous contextual factors affecting the political mobilisation. According to Saukkonen (2007:284-88) minorities have usually managed to mobilise politically in circumstances where the group has gained significant political or economical power, where political organisations or parties have managed to mobilise the minority, where the political system is open for new claims or where a minority feels its position is significantly threatened. In Denmark, electoral participation has been considerably higher than in the other Nordic countries, although the Danish integration regime has been viewed as less inclusive than in the other Nordic countries. Lise Togeby, who has compared electoral turnout among migrants living in Denmark and Sweden, claims that the Danish individual centred electoral system, with a number of migrant candidates connected to fairly well organised social networks, particularly in Århus and Copenhagen, has resulted in a political mobilisation of migrants (see Togeby 2008). Even though the Finnish electoral system shares many features with the Danish one,19 the political mobilisation of migrants has remained low as immigration and integration issues have generally had low saliency on the political agenda in Finland and the number of candidates with a migrant background has remained low.

9.8 Conclusions In this chapter different types of social involvement and their impact on electoral participation were tested. The empirical findings indicate that social capital, measured as the degree of organisational participation, at least partly explains electoral participation among immigrants in Finland, irrespective of other personal resources. The results indicate that organisational participation essentially forms a social resource which has a positive effect on electoral participation. The analysis also shows that immigrant organisations form an asset for electoral participation. The results seem to support claims that ethnic organisations function as a gateway into the majority society instead of isolating migrants. The empirical material suggests that migrants that are involved in ethnic organisation activities both become involved in the social activities within the greater society and to a higher degree participate in political activities. Based on the findings it also seems sensible to conclude that it is important to support policies designed to lower the barriers for migrants to participate in organisational activities. Further research is however needed on how and why social participation affects political participation. This raises more interesting questions on

19 It is even more person centred than the Danish one.

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how these procedures work and if there are differences between different types of organisations. Aside from organisational involvement, citizenship comes out as the most decisive predictor of electoral participation. Citizenship provides people with full political rights and makes the state of residence permanent, which according to earlier studies significantly increases the odds for participation in all types of societal activities. This also raises a question of how citizenship policies may act as a barrier for political integration and participation. In Finland citizenship policies are rather strict from a comparative perspective, which may have a negative impact on the political integration of migrants, as it may take almost a decade of permanent residence in the country before acquiring full civic rights. Other variables which show a statistically significant relationship with electoral participation include the time of residence in Finland, gender and education. Gender differences may reflect the fact that politics in some cultures are dominated by males, making the political integration of women an issue one should direct special attention to. Education on the other hand strengthens the skills and abilities to follow and engage in political activities. One could thus raise the question, of whether education in societal matters should be more strongly incorporated into the agenda of the integration courses that are offered to immigrants. Even though legislation and the rules for participation form an important aspect of the process, the results indicate that civil society organisations and political parties play a vital role for political mobilisation. Even though Denmark scores lowest on the integration scores on the MIPEX index (i.e. has the most unfavourable environment for participation) it seems that the Danish individual centred electoral system, the fairly high number of migrant candidates as well as well organised migrant groups, has resulted in a political mobilisation of migrants in Denmark. Finland on the other hand, seems to score fairly well on systemic features, but the short migration history in connection to the recent establishment of migrant organisations and the fact the political parties have not yet put much effort into mobilising migrants and nominating migrant candidates, seem to affect the political participation of migrants. Migration and integration issues have only in recent years become a central topic on the political agenda in Finland. A high degree of unemployment and discrimination of some migrant groups may also play a role.

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Index Advisory Board for Roma 106, 130 agency 7, 91-93, 95-98, 100, 102-103, 106, 142 Aliens Act (Finland) 30, 141-142, 144, 146-155, 158-161, 164, 169 assimilation 9, 12, 23, 34, 42, 49-50, 94, 96, 101-103, 107, 109, 119, 129 Banting, Keith 23, 34, 47, 50, 88-89, 170 Bauman, Zygmunt 6, 20 Beck, Ulrich 5-6, 20, 50, 75, 77, 89 belonging 6, 8, 16-17, 20, 54-56, 59-60, 65-68, 73-76, 79, 85-86, 89-90, 98, 109, 112, 118, 141, 156, 166 Blom, Jan-Petter 9, 20 blood feuding 107, 131-133, 138 bonding social capital 178, 183-184 boundaries 2-6, 8-10, 16, 20, 22, 24, 26, 34, 89, 108, 141-142, 144, 154, 161, 167-170 Bourdieu, Pierre 6, 18, 20, 111 bridging social capital 178, 184 Brubaker, Rogers 24, 34, 42, 50, 101, 107 Brunkhorst, Hauke 22, 35 Caldwell, Christopher 24, 35 Canada 3, 27, 34, 107, 201 Castells, Manuel 6, 10, 20 Chicago School of Sociology 31 citizenship 2, 5, 9, 14, 20, 30, 32, 34-35, 40, 42, 48-50, 54, 59, 62, 64, 67-69, 71, 73-77, 79-82, 86, 89-98, 103, 106-109, 170-171, 179, 186-187, 190-192, 194, 196, 198-199 civil society 2, 8, 31, 96, 98, 100, 104, 136, 140, 142-143, 176-178, 183, 187, 190, 195-196, 198 claims-making 23-25, 27, 29-30, 35, 92-93, 96-97, 104-106 community of fate 24, 25 consensualism 100-101, 108, 150, 153, 159 cosmopolitanism 7, 14 Council of Europe 53-55, 115, 118, 120, 126, 138 culture 4-5, 9-10, 18-20, 22, 25, 27, 30, 32, 39, 49, 59, 61, 67, 69, 71, 74, 76-77, 81, 84, 89-90, 96, 98, 101, 103-104, 106, 110, 116, 119, 122-123, 126-130, 133-134, 138, 140 Danish National Evangelical Lutheran Church 59 Danish People’s Party 22

Denmark 33-34, 50, 52-53, 56-60, 66, 69-71, 78-80, 82, 84-90, 95, 108, 182, 192-194, 196-198, 201 discipline 103, 138 discrimination 16, 28, 32, 59, 77-78, 82-88, 111-112, 114-118, 120, 123, 127, 129-132, 135, 137, 157, 196, 198 diversity 5-6, 9-10, 14-15, 21-22, 26, 28-30, 34-35, 45, 47, 49-50, 52-53, 59, 66, 68-78, 80-81, 84, 86-90, 106, 109-112, 131, 155, 170, 176-178, 199 Durkheim, Emile 2, 22 Elias, Norbert 18 Esping-Andersen, Gøsta 28 equality 28, 30, 43, 47-50, 60, 71-77, 80-81, 83-88, 90, 93, 95, 106, 108-112, 114-118, 137, 177, 181, 184, 201 Ethiopia 7 ethnic identity 24-25, 140 ethno-cultural rights 74 Eurobarometer 116 European Social Survey (ESS) 179, 194-195 European Union (EU) 5, 115-116 exclusion 2, 5, 8-10, 14-15, 22-23, 32, 34, 36, 48-49, 59, 73-75, 93-94, 96-97, 102, 109, 179 Faroe Islands 53, 59, 69-70 feminist scholarship 87 Finland 4, 7-9, 15, 29-32, 34, 47, 49-50, 52-53, 60-63, 67-71, 78, 82, 92, 96, 100-102, 104-131, 133-135, 137-142, 144-146, 153-159, 162, 164, 166-168, 171, 176, 178-179, 182, 186-198, 200-201 Finnish Association of Russian-Speaking Organisations 114 folkhem 47-48 Foucault, Michel 111, 136, 138 Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) 53, 138 Fraser, Nancy 91-94, 96, 98-99, 105-107, 109 French Revolution 39-40 gender 15, 28, 30, 71-77, 80-81, 83-84, 86-90, 108-109, 114, 116-118, 179, 185-187, 191-192, 198

Index  gender equality paradox 80-81 Giddens, Anthony 5-6, 16, 21 globalisation 3-4, 8, 13-14, 71, 74, 95 Godelier, Maurice 2-4, 8, 21 governmentality 151, 153 Greenland 53, 59, 69-70 habitus 18, 111 Hancock, Ange-Marie 75, 96, 107 headscarves in Nordic nations 82 Helsingin Sanomat 30, 126, 142, 169 Hollinger, David 22, 35 homogeneity 46-48, 52, 111, 143, 145, 150, 178, 185, 196 Huntington, Samuel 24, 27, 35, 142 Iceland 13, 50, 53-54, 187 identities 2, 5, 9, 11-12, 15, 19, 24-25, 27, 39, 41-42, 45-47, 49, 52-53, 56-57, 64, 70, 72-74, 76-77, 92, 95, 137, 145, 184 identity politics 2, 11-14, 20, 38-39, 46, 56, 74-75, 92, 112 imagined community 74 immigrants 7-8, 10-12, 16, 19, 21-23, 25, 27-28, 31, 33-34, 49-50, 52, 59, 64, 71, 73, 78-80, 90, 107, 118, 133, 144, 146, 149, 151-152, 155-159, 161-163, 165-169, 179, 182, 184-185, 187-189, 192, 196-201 inclusion 2, 5, 8-9, 14-15, 22-24, 26, 28, 30-31, 34-35, 48-49, 65-66, 73-75, 93, 102, 109-110, 120, 137, 159, 177, 183, 185, 198 indigenous peoples 22-23, 25, 30, 34, 49, 64-65, 118-119, 123, 125-126, 129, 137 instrumentalism 148, 153 integration 1-2, 4, 9-10, 16-20, 22-23, 27-28, 35, 40-43, 45, 47-49, 59, 71-73, 77-82, 87, 89-90, 103, 106-107, 133, 140-141, 143-147, 152-155, 158-170, 176-179, 181, 184-185, 188, 191-192, 194, 196-201 Integration Act (Finland) 141, 152-155, 158-159, 162-164, 169 Internet 11, 13, 21, 115, 122, 147, 160-166, 169 intersectionality 71, 75, 84-86, 90 Jews 18, 26-27, 61, 63, 67, 97 kansalaisuus 49-50, 139, 170 Karelian 113 Khleif, Bud 122 Klausen, Jytte 48, 50

 203

Kven 57, 63, 65, 67-68 Kymlicka, Will 23, 27, 34-35, 40, 43, 47, 50, 73-77, 88-90, 92, 108, 149, 170 language debates 53 language policy 57 Lapland 32, 122-124, 126, 129, 187 Lukes, Steven 111-112, 118, 135-136, 139, 145, 170 Marshall, T.H. 28, 50, 73, 79 Mauss, Marcel 18 media 31, 46, 56, 96-97, 126, 132, 141-143, 146-147, 160-162, 165-166, 168, 170 Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) 179, 194, 200-201 migration 3-5, 7, 9-11, 15, 20, 32, 35, 52, 71, 73-74, 77-78, 80-82, 87-88, 90, 95, 107-109, 142, 145-146, 148-149, 153-155, 169-170, 182, 188, 192-194, 198-201 minorities V, VI, VII, 4, 9, 15-17, 22-23, 26, 28-29, 31-32, 34-35, 41-46, 49-50, 52-58, 60-68, 70-71, 73-77, 81, 88, 92, 95, 106, 110, 112-114, 116-122, 127, 132-133, 137-140, 144, 150-152, 194, 197, 201 minoritised 112, 118 mobility 2, 6, 12, 34, 52, 73-74, 80, 143 modernity 4-6, 14, 20-21, 39-41, 50 Modood, Tariq 71, 73, 76, 90, 109 multicultural dilemma 72, 77 multiculturalism 2, 22-24, 26-27, 30, 34-36, 38, 42, 47, 50, 52, 70-72, 75-77, 79-80, 86, 88-90, 108-109, 166, 170-171, 201 national cohesion 8, 79 national identity 12, 25, 27, 31, 34, 48, 50, 52, 112, 129, 166, 170 national solidarity 31, 150, 154, 168 nationalism 4, 8-9, 11-12, 20, 33, 39, 43, 46-47, 50, 79, 81, 107, 109 New Russians 62, 114 New Zealand 3 NGOs 7, 96-97, 99, 120, 146, 148, 150, 159 Nordic democracies 49 Nordic welfare states 35, 72-73, 77, 79, 81, 87, 91, 95, 105, 108, 178, 195-196, 199 Norway 4, 7, 9, 12, 14, 20-22, 29-34, 50, 52-53, 63-67, 69-71, 78-80, 82, 84-86, 88-92, 96, 101-105, 107, 118, 122, 124, 126, 140, 182, 187, 192-194

204 

 Index

Norway’s Progress Party 22 Nussbaum, Martha 22, 35, 90 obligations 52, 55-58, 69, 73-74, 79-80, 95 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) 29, 80 Okin, Susan Moller 30, 35, 71, 76-77, 90 Old Russians 61-62, 114 Ombudsman for Minorities (Finland) 114, 117, 127, 140 Papua New Guinea 3 parliamentary debates 30, 63, 142, 147, 155, 159, 161, 163 peoplehood 29, 39-41, 47, 51 Phillips, Anne 72, 77, 90 political opportunity structure 177, 180 political participation 73, 176-186, 190, 192, 194, 196-201 political rights 28, 48, 63, 116, 119, 138, 181-182, 190, 194, 196, 198 power 3-4, 11, 14, 19, 28, 36, 40-41, 43-44, 46-47, 68, 71-73, 80-82, 84-88, 91-94, 96, 98-100, 102, 104-106, 108, 110-112, 117-118, 128-129, 132-136, 138-139, 145-147, 150-151, 164-165, 170, 176-177, 181, 197 public debates 16, 64, 141, 143 public sphere 8, 90, 94, 96, 100-101, 106, 111-112, 119, 121, 124-125, 135-136, 143, 166 racism 33, 99, 105-106, 111, 114, 117, 129, 132, 137, 155, 157-158, 164-165, 196 Rajamäki, Kari 146, 148-149, 151, 153, 158-159, 167 recognition 14, 30, 45-46, 49-50, 62, 67, 74, 77, 88, 91-98, 100-102, 104-105, 107, 109, 117, 119, 155, 170-171 redistribution 30, 50, 87, 92-95, 98, 105, 107, 109, 145, 170 religion 3-4, 8-9, 11, 15-16, 24, 26, 36, 43, 56, 60, 66, 70, 72, 74, 76, 81, 84-86, 88-90, 97, 114-116, 140, 187 resistance 22, 103, 105, 125, 140 rights 2, 18, 28, 35, 40, 42, 44, 48, 50, 52-56, 61, 63, 69-80, 84, 89, 94-95, 99, 102, 104-105, 108-109, 113, 115-121, 123-127, 129-130, 133, 137-140, 143, 146, 149, 153-154, 156, 165, 168, 181-182, 186-187, 190-196, 198

Roma 29-30, 32, 49, 52, 60-61, 63-65, 67, 70, 91-92, 94, 96-106, 108-110, 112-114, 118-121, 129-138, 156 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 39-40 Russian empire 53 Russian Orthodox Church 70 Sámi 15, 29-32, 42, 46, 49, 52-53, 57, 61-65, 67, 69-70, 110-115, 117-129, 133, 135-140, 187 schools 8, 66, 70, 102-103, 110, 127-128, 130, 133-134, 149 Scott, James 136, 140 Second World War 52, 102, 124, 129, 134 sexual orientation 114-116 Simmel, Georg 2, 32, 35, 161, 171 social benefits 79 social capital 16-17, 19-20, 31, 144, 171, 176-180, 183-185, 191, 194-197, 199-200 social democracy 28 Social Democrats 47, 104 social policy 89, 102-104, 108 society 2-6, 8, 10, 14-18, 20-21, 25-26, 30-31, 34-35, 42-43, 49, 64, 67, 71, 73, 76, 78, 81, 87, 89-90, 93, 96-98, 100-102, 104, 108, 110-112, 115-118, 129-131, 136-138, 140, 142-143, 152, 155, 157-158, 161-165, 168, 176-178, 181-187, 189-190, 192, 195-198 solidarity 1, 22-23, 26, 29, 31, 35, 95, 144-145, 149-150, 153-155, 163, 166-168, 184 Somalia 18 South Africa 3, 13 sovereignty 3, 23, 29, 38-42, 44-46, 49, 53, 154, 168 super-diversity 11-12, 21 Sweden 7, 21-22, 29-34, 47, 50, 52-53, 57, 66-68, 70-71, 78-79, 82, 85-86, 90-92, 95-96, 101-105, 118, 121-122, 124, 126, 129, 133, 154, 178, 182, 190, 192-194, 196-197, 199-200 Sweden Democrats 22 Swedish Gypsies 101 Swedish People’s Party (Finland) 8, 146 Tatars 61, 101 Taylor, Charles 23, 36, 92, 109, 149, 171 territory 3, 5, 9, 12, 40, 42, 44, 59, 114, 121, 127, 164 Tilly, Charles 135, 140 Tönnies, Ferdinand 2

Index  Travellers 63, 65, 91-92, 101-102, 104-105, 118, 120 Treaty of Kiel 53 True Finns 22, 31, 146, 158 Tully, James 94, 96, 101, 109 underclass 30, 129 unemployment 97, 131, 164-165, 198 Union period 53 Urry, John 6,21

 205

“we” 22 Weber, Max 2, 139 welfare state 28-29, 47-50, 72, 79-81, 87-91, 93, 95-97, 100-101, 103-108, 141, 145, 147, 151-152, 159, 170 welfare state nationalism 81 Young, Iris Marion 22, 32, 36, 47, 92-94, 96-100, 102, 109, 131, 140, 164 Yuval-Davis, Nira 71-72, 74-75, 77, 86, 90 Åland Islands 52-53